Brilliant

“ And not only these faculties have been brought into severe exercise, but the strictest good taste and good sense were called into play, together with a certain final gift which we hardly know how to name, and which is by no means common, even among very clever poets,—a comprehensive sense of form, of proportion, and of real completeness, without which the most brilliant efforts of the imagination are a mere agglomeration of ill-reconciled beauties. ”

“ There are many mediums in the means—none, oh, not a jot, not a shadow of a jot, in the end of great art. In a picture whose merit is to be excessively brilliant, it can’t be too brilliant, but individual tints may be too brilliant.... ”

“ It is absolutely a gift of nature, on which man cannot improve. We turn from the brilliant, dazzling ornament of diamonds or emeralds to a necklace of pearls with a sense of relief, and the eye rests upon it with quiet, satisfied repose and is delighted with its modest splendor, its soft gleam, borrowed from its home in the depths of the sea. ”

“ The dazzling of the eye by blazing sunlight and brilliant colours, the relief given by the cool deep streams under luxuriant foliage, the vague consciousness of wondrous forms of life lurking in the forest depths, can be realised without any special accuracy of portraiture. ”

“ Our scientific knowledge of cause and effect may prevent us from accepting any of the fanciful notions of the physicians and astrologers of the olden time; nevertheless, the possession of a necklace or a ring adorned with brilliant diamonds, fair pearls, warm, glowing rubies, or celestial-hued sapphires will to-day make a woman’s heart beat fastervi and bring a blush of pleasure to her cheek. Life will seem better worth living to her ”

“ There, in truth, the success achieved was more than an elocutionary triumph—it was the realisation to his hearers, by one who had the soul of a poet, and the gifts of an orator, and the genius of a great and vividly imaginative author, of a convulsion of nature when nature bears an aspect the grandest and the most astounding. ”

“ In its pages the wonder tales and wonder facts meet and resolve; realism and idealism are joined—above all, there is a mystery no critic may solve. It is useless to criticize genius or a miracle, except to increase its wonder. ”

“ What then is the ‘respect’ in question here,—the something or other in regard to which sublimity and grandeur seemed to be allied with one another, and to differ decidedly from grace and prettiness? It appears to be greatness. Thousands of things are ‘beautiful,’ graceful, or pretty, and yet make no impression of greatness, nay, this impression in many cases appears to collide with, and even to destroy, that of grace or prettiness, so that if a pretty thing produced it you would cease to call it pretty. ”

“ The very glory of it all, the age of it all, the wonder of it all, the mysterious beauty and thrill of it all; the thrill of these masses of humanity, their infinite possibilities for future greatness; like a great blinding flash of glory, dims one's eyes for a time. ”

“ When I speak then of my books you will know what I mean. The chief charm of literature, old or new, lies in its high quality of surprise, unexpectedness, spontaneity: high spirits applied to life. We can fairly hear some of the old chaps you and I know laughing down through the centuries. How we love 'em! They laughed for themselves, not for us!
Yes, there must be surprise in the books that I keep in the worn case at my elbow, the surprise of a new personality perceiving for the first time the beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the greatness of truth. ”

“ It is not unfashionable to pit one form of drama against another—holding up the naturalistic to the disadvantage of the epic; the epic to the belittlement of the fantastic; the fantastic to the detriment of the naturalistic. Little purpose is thus served. The essential meaning, truth, beauty, and irony of things may be revealed under all these forms. Vision over life and human nature can be as keen and just, the revelation as true, inspiring, delight-giving, and thought-provoking, whatever fashion be employed—it is simply a question of doing it well enough to uncover the kernel of the nut. ”

“ The greatness of the glory revealed will, no doubt, as it makes its immensity felt, demand of him an ever-growing recognition of the little that he can cover under his own experience, and of the limitless mystery that lies beyond, elusive and 'imperfectly comprehended'. ”

“ Who would not willingly pierce the pensive gloom, or dwell among the brighter glories of the golden age, to acquire by a warm and glowing, but correct and chaste contemplation of the beautiful and sublime works of nature, these ravishing sensations, and gain this noble fervor of the imagination? ”

“ How can you—as long as you look upon all paltry creations of man as great and splendid—strive after the eternal? If you see perfection and excellence in everything here below, how can you yearn for the really perfect? ”

“ It is the realised perfection of everything good and beautiful on earth; or, in other words, all such goodness and beauty is its partial manifestation. ‘All,’ I say: for the splendour of nature, the love of lovers, every affection and virtue, any good action or just law, the wisdom of philosophy, the creations of art, the truths deformed by superstitious religion,—all are equally operations or appearances of the hidden power. ”

“ He pictured the world, on whose threshold he now stood, pictured it, not with a bold unhallowed hand, but as the completion, the consummation of all those dim whisperings of joy, and hope, and wisdom, which had engrossed him below—the perfection of that beauty, that loveliness, in the material and immaterial, he had yearned for in vain on earth. ”

“ The charm, then, of what is classical in art or literature is that of the well-known tale, to which we can nevertheless listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the absolute beauty of its form is added the accidental, tranquil charm of familiarity. ”

“ The emerald is so highly esteemed in Europe, that it merits the best workmanship. It ought to be cut in planes or steps, larger or smaller, according to the intensity of its color, with a low bizel, and large table, and set on black. With this work it appears to the greatest advantage, especially if also surrounded by brilliants, the lustre of which contrasts agreeably with the softened hue of the gem. ”

“ But soon the irresistible charm of a book which gratified the imagination of the reader with all the action and scenery of a fairy tale, which exercised his ingenuity by setting him to discover a multitude of curious analogies, which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. ”

“ The chief charm, indeed, of that narrative, was the melancholy playfulness—melancholy, from the wounded feeling so visible through its pleasantry—with which events unimportant and persons uninteresting, in almost every respect but their connection with such a man's destiny, were detailed and described in it. ”

“ Hers is realism, [5] naked and unashamed; challenging [Pg 84] comparison with life itself at every point, wholly dependent upon truthfulness to nature. Her triumph is purely artistic: the absolute fitness of expression to reveal insight, observation, sympathy, and humour; in a simple narrative of parochial affairs, composed with rare skill, faithfully reflecting everyday life and ordinary people. ”

“ The great captivates the masses, the true impresses the individual spectator.
The aim of the dramatic poet, whatever his general ideas concerning art, should be therefore, first of all, to seek the great, like Corneille, or the true, like Molière; or, better still,—and this is the highest elevation that genius can attain,—to aspire to both the great and the true, the great in the true, the true in the great, like Shakespeare. ”

“ Throughout the first series of "Wonder Tales" there is a capital air of make-believe, which imposes upon you most delightfully, and makes you accept the most incredible doings, as you accept them in a dream, as the most natural thing in the world. ”

“ Some day they are overcome by that all-absorbing, dreamy sensation which forms the contrast to their whole secret and public life: like unto delightful mystery and miracle, full of golden splendour and baffling description and illustration. ”

“ A more profound appreciation of its contents and connection changes questioning into admiration, and transforms perplexity into wondering delight. We perceive how the thoughts of the prelude light up the whole scene with a golden glow of human tenderness and Divine grandeur, so that, like a picture set in its true light, we now discern in it a depth of meaning and a wealth of beauty previously unsuspected. ”

“ We have been taking a cheerful—a hopeful view of our surrounding world, as it is enclosed within these our seas, whose ideal murmur seemed a while to breathe in unison with our Monologue. We have been believing that in this our native land, the road of merit is the road to success—say happiness. And is not the law the same in the world of Literature and the Fine Arts? Give a great genius anything like fair play, and he will gain glory—nay, bread. ”

“ And there can be no doubt that, by the studied involution and extrication of the story, by the combination of incidents new, striking and wonderful beyond the course of ordinary life, the former authors opened that obvious and strong sense of interest which arises from curiosity; as by the pure, elevated, and romantic cast of the sentiment, they conciliated those better propensities of our nature which loves to contemplate the picture of virtue, even when confessedly unable to imitate its excellences. ”

“ And the wonder working in the world beyond them, —this huge, beautiful marvel, planned by the human brain and carried out by mere human hands, this great thing with which all the world seemed to them to be throbbing, and which seemed to set no limit to itself and prove that there was no limit to the power of human wills and minds,—this filled them with a passion of restlessness and yearning greater than they had ever known before. ”

“ The sublimity of the scene, when first beheld, produced unlimited astonishment; viewed again and again, all was softened down into harmonious shades of beauty, imparting a pleasure that cannot be understood by mere dwellers amidst the works of man. ”

“ But it is in vain to think of conveying an adequate idea of a scene where the sublime is mingled with the beautiful, and the bold and striking with the delicate and sensitive; where every sense is gratified, the mind calmed, and the whole soul delighted. ”

“ Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination which makes the imperfect more perfect, creates better than the materials permit, forces real life actually to assume and be what the passionate desire for sanity and beauty demands. ”

“ But whatever strikes us as sublime produces an impression of greatness, and more—of exceeding or even overwhelming greatness. And this greatness, further, is apparently no mere accompaniment of sublimity, but essential to it: remove the greatness in imagination, and the sublimity vanishes. Grandeur, too, seems always to possess greatness, though not in this superlative degree; while ‘beauty’ neither invariably possesses it nor tends, like prettiness and grace, to exclude it. ”

“ And here let me take notice of a new species of the sublime, of which our poet may be justly said to be the maker; so new, that we have yet no name for it, though of a nature distinct from every other known beauty of poetry. The two great perfections in works of genius are wit and sublimity. ”

“ Erratic, meteor-like beauty! for how many thousand years has man been your slave! Let me repeat, the sentiment at the sight of a perfect beauty is as much amazement as admiration. It so draws the heart out of itself as to seem like magic. ”

“ Here is a story whose artistic realism will appeal to everyone, while its distinction as a serious novel is made evident by its clever analysis, sparkling dialogue and thrilling and powerful situations. ”

“ Every one knows what charm there is in the talk of a man of the world who puts before his listeners, in picturesque phrases, the variable incidents of actual life as he himself has encountered them. The whim, the personal idiom, the glancing humour, the concrete image, the vivacious disorderliness, the skilful dealing at first hand with glowing human experience, give to talk of this sort a peculiarly winning quality. And the style that in literature mimics afar the colloquial rhythms and the idiom of such familiar talk has also, its peculiar charm. ”

“ We talk here, naturally, not of non-poetic forms, but of those whose highest bid is addressed to the imagination, to the spiritual and the æsthetic vision, the mind led captive by a charm and a spell, an incalculable art. ”

“ There is a sense of completeness, of perfection, which is given a fine thought by appropriate expression in rhythmical language, which prose can never equal, and which, through the potent magic of Form, lifts the mind out of the material into the ideal world, and grants us a momentary glimpse of the Infinite. ”

“ With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty, And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty. With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime, Where halts above the eternal sea 57 the shuddering child of time. ”

“ Few, perhaps, among mankind have undergone vicissitudes of peril and wonder equal to mine. The miracles of poetry, the transitions of enchantment, are beggarly and mean, compared with those which I had experienced: passage into new forms, overleaping the bars of time and space, reversal of the laws of inanimate and intelligent existence, had been mine to perform and to witness. ”