Winslow Homer

“ All his life he is the man from the new236 country asking the dead and the living representatives of the classic tradition for help. How little we see of the man himself in the mosaic of charming things that make up his art. Winslow Homer exists as a personality, ill-educated and crude, but affirmative and arresting. ”

“ For example, Winslow Homer (1836-) is one of the strongest and most original of all the American artists, a man who never had the advantage of the highest technical training, yet possesses a feeling for color, a dash and verve in execution, an originality in subject, and an individuality of conception that are unsurpassed. ”

“ The two women seated on a bench in the “Mending the Nets” are young-faced, large-boned, big-bodied types that have a sculpturesque quality about them; and the “Watching the Tempest” throws out a suggestion of the Homeric sea that is to be.
[7] Winslow Homer: An Appreciation, by Kenyon Cox, New York, 1914.
It was in 1884 that Homer finally went to Prout’s Neck, near Scarborough, where he built a cottage on the shore and lived for the rest of his life, quite alone, practically shut out from art and artists, a recluse and a hermit yet [Pg 101] within gunshot of a crowd. ”

“ If their independence is so valuable a factor in both men’s work, there is also to be noted the heavy price that each paid for having been reared in a provincial school. With a boldness of character that recalls Courbet, Winslow Homer fails234 utterly to hold a place in art analogous to that of the French realist, because all the power and ability that went into his work were unequal to compensating for his lack of the knowledge of form, of structure, of optical effect that Ingres and Delacroix, among others, furnished ready to the hand of Courbet. ”

“ He places the God or Goddess at the center of every movement or event; by divine will it is all brought about. The sea which stands in the way of the return of Ulysses is a deity, Poseidon; Eidothea is a person, the voice of the world of Appearance, and she leads to Proteus, the Primal One. To Homer personality is at the heart of this universe. Such is truly the mythical mind; all phenomena are the product of an intelligent will, not of blind law. Not a long chain of cause and effect hovers before Homer's soul, thus his work would be prose ”

“ But Hermes came near and took him by the hand and said:—
"Whither goest thou, old man, with thy horses and mules through the darkness? Hast thou no fear of these fierce Greeks, who are close at hand? If any one should see thee with all this wealth, what then? And thou art not young, nor is thy attendant young, that ye should defend yourselves against an enemy. But I will not harm thee, nor suffer any other, for thou art like my own dear father."
"It is well, my son," said the old man. "Surely one of the blessed gods is with me, in causing me to meet such an one as thou, so fair and so wise. ”

“ See that no man thrust thee in the back with a spear. Tarry, rather, and keep back this fierce man of war from old Nestor."
So he spake, but Ulysses heeded not, fleeing fast to the ships.
Then rushed Diomed, alone as he was, into the foremost rank, and stood before the chariot of old Nestor, and spake: "Old sir, the younger fighters press thee sore; feeble thou art, and weak thy charioteer, and thy horses slow. Come, mount upon my chariot, and see what the horses of Tros can do, that I took from Æneas,—how they can flee, and follow and speed this way and that! ”

“ And the fierce coursers urged their rapid pace
So swift, it seem’d a flight, and not a race.
Now victor at the goal Tydides stands,
Quits his bright car, and springs upon the sands;
From the hot steeds the sweaty torrents stream;
The well-plied whip is hung athwart the beam:
With joy brave Sthenelus receives the prize,
The tripod-vase, and dame with radiant eyes:
These to the ships his train triumphant leads,
The chief himself unyokes the panting steeds.
Young Nestor follows (who by art, not force,
O’erpass’d Atrides) second in the course. ”

“ One could scarcely imagine it speeding through the air upon a hurtful mission. It had wandered on to find a victim, until, its impetus spent, it had fallen ingloriously to lie upon this rock, mocked by the sunlight which it had been meant to darken forever for some living creature. Homer slipped it into his pocket and began to make his way shoreward, leaping lightly from stone to stone. As he sprang to land again, he said between his teeth, "I'd like to hear any she-cat in the crowd open her lips to my wife!" It will be seen his reverie had developed its subject. ”

“ The Goddess will help him only when he helps himself. Divinity is not to sap human volition, but to enforce it; she would unmake Telemachus, if she allowed him to stay at home and do nothing, tied to his mother's apron strings.
And here we cannot help noting an observation on Homer's poetry. It must be in the reader ere he can see it in the book. Unless he be ready for its spirit, it will not appear, certainly it will not speak. There must be a rise into the vision of Homeric poetry on the part of the reader, as there is a rise into the vision of the Goddess on the part of Ulysses. ”

“ Old Homer wrote admirably for little folk, especially in the Odyssey; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,—for, judging from its surpassing interest, and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the Iliad; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power and at how early an age true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no other writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. ”

“ But him prudent Antilochus in turn answered:
“Have patience now, since I am much younger than thou, O king Menelaus, and thou art older and superior. Thou knowest of what sort are the errors of a youth; for his mind is indeed more volatile, and his counsel weak. Therefore let thy heart endure, and I myself will give thee the steed which I have received. And if indeed thou demandest anything else greater from my house, I should be willing to give it immediately rather than fall for ever, Ο Jove-nurtured, from thy good opinion, and be sinful towards the gods.” ”

“ There pass the night: while he his course pursues
To bring Penelope the wish’d-for news,
That thou, safe sailing from the Pylian strand,
Art come to bless her in thy native land.”
Thus spoke the goddess, and resumed her flight
To the pure regions of eternal light,
Meanwhile Pisistratus he gently shakes,
And with these words the slumbering youth awakes:
“Rise, son of Nestor; for the road prepare,
And join the harness’d coursers to the car.”
“What cause (he cried) can justify our flight
To tempt the dangers of forbidding night? ”

“ She pointed in the direction of the Cambridge Manor Country Club. "We know that spaceships have a disturbing effect on primitive races such as yours."
In spite of Homer's determination not to believe this girl, he felt an admiration in the way she played her role. He wondered if there was really a spaceship on the golf course. It would certainly have a disturbing effect on early morning golfers. Good heavens! C. J. Fader belonged to Cambridge Manor!
"Miss—er—Qalith," Homer said, "your being here presents problems, whether or not you are from the Pleiades! ”

“ But leave a sword and a spear apiece for yourself and me, and a couple of oxhide shields so that we can snatch them up at any moment; Jove and Minerva will then soon quiet these people. There is also another matter; if you are indeed my son and my blood runs in your veins, let no one know that Ulysses is within the house—neither Laertes, nor yet the swineherd, nor any of the servants, nor even Penelope herself. Let you and me exploit the women alone, and let us also make trial of some other of the men servants, to see who is on our side and whose hand is against us. ”

“ The swine-herd; for Eumæus is thy friend.
There sleep, and send him forth into the town
With tidings to Penelope, that safe 50
Thou art restored from Pylus home again.
She said, and sought th’ Olympian heights sublime.
Then, with his heel shaking him, he awoke
The son of Nestor, whom he thus address’d.
Rise, Nestor’s son, Pisistratus! lead forth
The steeds, and yoke them. We must now depart.
To whom the son of Nestor thus replied.
Telemachus! what haste soe’er we feel,
We can by no means prudently attempt
To drive by night, and soon it will be dawn. ”

“ And ascending to the upper room, with her women attendants, she then bewailed Ulysses, her dear husband; until blue-eyed Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eye-lids. But the divine swineherd taking the bow, carried it; and all the suitors in the palace chided him; and thus some one of the proud youths spoke:
"Where now art thou bearing the crooked bow, O unenviable swineherd, wandering fellow? The swift dogs which thou hast nourished over thy swine shall soon consume thee away from men, if Apollo and the other immortal gods are propitious to us." ”

“ And ever at their side, knowing her pow’r,
Minerva; she compassionates thy griefs,
And I am here her harbinger, who speak
As thou hast heard by her own kind command.
Then thus Penelope the wise replied.
Oh! if thou art a goddess, and hast heard
A Goddess’ voice, rehearse to me the lot
Of that unhappy one, if yet he live 1010
Spectator of the cheerful beams of day,
Or if, already dead, he dwell below.
Whom answer’d thus the fleeting shadow vain.
I will not now inform thee if thy Lord
Live, or live not. Vain words are best unspoken. ”

“ And give the eyes thou giv’st, their use; destroy us in the light,
And work thy will with us, since needs thou wilt against us fight.”
This spake he weeping, and his tears Saturnius pity show’d,
Dispers’d the darkness instantly, and drew away the cloud
From whence it fell; the sun shin’d out, and all the host appear’d;
And then spake Ajax, whose heard pray’r his spirits highly cheer’d:
“Brave Menelaus, look about; and if thou canst descry
Nestor’s Antilochus alive, incite him instantly
To tell Achilles that his friend, most dear to him, is dead.” ”

“ Intense muscular exertion in every form, intense physical action of the surrounding elements, with intense ascription or description of size or colour;—together make up an immense fraction of the poem. To cut out these words is to emasculate the epic. Even Pope admits such words. My eye in turning his pages was just now caught by: ‘They tug, they sweat’. Who will say that ‘tug’, ‘sweat’ are admissible, but ‘bang’, ‘smash’, ‘sputter’ are inadmissible? Mr Arnold resents my saying that Homer is often homely. He is homely expressly because he is natural. ”

“ Disney was the bigger man, and quite as clever with his hands as Homer; but the latter's arm was nerved by every insult Myron Holder had endured. As Disney sprang forward, he uttered her name, coupled with an epithet that simply maddened Homer. There was no resisting the fury of his attack.... Many hands dragged Homer from the man he had knocked insensible and bade fair to kill, if left alone. ”

“ He gathered them, doubtless, but he transfigured them into an image reflecting the experience of a human soul. Our age is indeed scientific, it is collecting the folk-songs and the folk-tales from every quarter of the globe, and stringing them on a thread, like so many beads, not being able to transmute them into poetry. Wolf heralded the coming time by starting to reconvert Homer into his primitive materials, by making him scientific and not poetic, at least not architectonic. ”

“ Then the wise Penelope answered him: “Stranger, if only thou wert willing still to sit beside me in the halls and to delight me, not upon my eyelids would sleep be shed. But men may in no wise abide sleepless ever, for the immortals have made a time for all things for mortals on the grain-giving earth. Howbeit I will go aloft to my upper chamber, and lay me on my bed, the place of my groanings, that is ever watered by my tears, since the day that Odysseus went to see that evil Ilios, never to be named. There will I lay me down, but do thou lie in this house ”

“ Then, as Homer says, “smiling under tears,” she raised herself, pushed her son from her, and said:
“Come, let me see you on horseback, fair sir!”
The silent traveller kissed the hands of his mother, and made a low bow to her; he bowed also to the Duchess, without raising his eyes. Then, embracing his elder brother, pressing the hand of the Marechal, and kissing the forehead of his young sister almost simultaneously, he went forth, and was on horseback in an instant. Every one went to the windows which overlooked the court, except Madame d’Effiat, who was still seated and suffering. ”

“ His heart is in his native island; but, sooth to say, he makes the best of his present captivity. He endures, if he does not heartily reciprocate, the love of his fair jailer. The correspondence in many points of these Homeric lays with the legends of mediæval Christendom, especially with those of Arthur and his Round Table, has been already noticed. It has been said also that, on the whole, the moral tone of Homer is far purer. But there is one bright creation of mediæval fiction which finds no counterpart in the song of the Greek bard. ”

“ Now to the grasp each manly body bends; The humid sweat from every pore descends; Their bones resound with blows: sides, shoulders, thighs Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise. Nor could Ulysses, for his art renown’d, O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground; Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow The watchful caution of his artful foe. While the long strife even tired the lookers on, Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon: “Or let me lift thee, chief, or lift thou me: Prove we our force, and Jove the rest decree.” ”