Homage

“ and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips and shows itself in deeds. ”

“ It dazzles me perhaps even more in remembrance than in fact, for I'm not unaware that for a subject so magnificent the imagination goes to some expense, inserting a jewel here and there or giving a twist to a plume. How the art of portraiture would rejoice in this figure if the art of portraiture had only the canvas! Nature, in truth, had largely rounded it, and if Memory, hovering about it, sometimes holds her breath, this is because the voice that comes back was really golden. ”

“ Let us honor you by our admiration rather than by short-lived praises, and, if nature aid us, by our emulation of you. That is true honor, that the piety of whoever is most akin to you. This also I would teach your family, so to venerate your memory as to call to mind all your actions and words, and embrace your character and the form of your soul rather than of your body; not because I think that statues which are made of marble or brass are to be condemned, but as the features of men, so images of the features are frail and perishable. ”

“ In all the world those gems had been a subject of romance, and legend had draped their search with a myriad marvels. Poets and fictionists in many tongues had embroidered their gossamer fabric with these exquisite lures, the ornament of beauty, the treasures of queen and odalisque, mondaine and dancer, image and shrine, since humans began to adorn themselves with more delicate things than the skins and teeth of animals. ”

“ It may be an heirloom in an ancient house, like the portrait of the hero who gave a family name and fame, like the portrait of the maiden martyr or the faithful wife who made that name beloved, that fame poetry, to all ages. ”

“ I shall endeavour for some time only to show you the function of modest art, as the handmaid of natural science; and the exponent, first of the beauty of the creatures subject to your own human life; and then of the history of that life in past time; of which one chief source of illustration is to be found in the most brilliant, and in its power on character, hitherto the most practically effective of the arts—Heraldry. ”

“ Perfect, marmoreal, curved and carven statue-wise,
Your hard immaculate beauty dulls the sharpness of desire,
And chills it to a changeless passion–
A frozen passion bright and pallid,
And clear as is the ghostly fervor of the moon’s white fire. ”

“ Therefore let all your figures suggest the appropriate emotion by means of the appropriate gesture—the gesture consecrated by the great tradition. Straining limbs, looks of love, hate, envy, fear and horror, up-turned or downcast eyes, hands outstretched or clasped in despair—by means of our marvellous machinery, and still more marvellous skill, we can give them all they ask without forestalling the photographers. But we are not recounters all, for some of our patrons are poets. To them the visible Universe is suggestive of moods or, at any rate, sympathetic with them. ”

“ I do not mean a sainted face, suggestive of stained glass and marble tombs, but a rugged human face that has had the grit, and rain, and sunshine of life rubbed into it, and that has gained its expression, not by looking up with longing at the stars, but by looking down with eyes full of laughter and love at the human things around it. ”

“ In the hieroglyphics there is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbolical inspiration, like a soul of life—like the breathing of a high in-dwelling spirit,—a deeply felt significancy—a lofty and beautiful design apparent through the dead character denoting any particular name or fact. ”

“ The inhabitants of towns without number, where thou hast exercised thy apostolate of charity, will associate themselves with this work of affection and remembrance. But the most imperishable monument is that which thou hast thyself founded with thine own head and hands, and which will live in our hearts—the creations of thy genius and the memory of thy philanthropy. ”

“ To these simple tokens which Nature has preserved, it might be fitting and well, were some more enduring memorial added of that pious, patient, and high-hearted race, from whom some of the most illustrious names in different sections of our country, trace their descent with pleasure and with pride. ”

“ For grandeur of design and excellency and beauty of workmanship, I believe it excels every other structure of a commemorative character in any part of the world. In approaching it, I was struck with astonishment by its beauty and magnificence. ”

“ I have wished above all, in gathering together here these few memories, in a bouquet reverently placed upon his tomb, to help, if I can, to fix the image of a man truly great in character and in thought, of a wonderful representative of the genius of our race. ”

“ It stands alone, with nothing near to distract the mind by divided attention, and as the lover of the beautiful looks upon the wondrous beauty of that speechless yet speaking statue, admiration ripens into adoration. ”

“ Mythological and Biblical themes, portraits and landscapes, are almost throughout of equal perfection and beauty. His exuberant fancy is nowhere revealed to better advantage than in the fascinating sketches in which the Hermitage is so rich. They must be termed veritable orgies of the draughtsman and the colorist, and bear to a certain extent the imprint of perennial genius and happy inspiration, which the painting, often completed by his pupils, cannot quite show. ”

“ It is for you to raise us to this glorious pinnacle. Where, to use a simile, I may say we shall be as a statue representing dignity and love, teaching young worlds the first principles of prehuman justice. ”

“ In addition to the cherished remembrance always inspired by portraits of those we love, a breathing of life, as if the dead or absent person were communicating with us in spirit, is perhaps unconsciously infused into the picture while we look at it. ”

“ On the contrary, the structures of greatness and antiquity should be marked by a character of awful sublimity, suited to the dignity of the subject; indenting on the mind a reverential and permanent impression, and giving, at once, a corresponding and unequivocal grandeur to the picture. ”

“ But when I now, in the latest times, see attention again turned to those objects, when I see affection and even passion for them appearing and flourishing, when I see able young persons seized with this passion, recklessly devoting powers, time, care, and property, to these memorials of a past world, then am I reminded with pleasure that what I formerly would and wished had a value. ”

“ At a later and more refined period, we sometimes find these primitive legends combined into a regular system under the hands of the poet, and the rude outline moulded into forms of ideal beauty, which are the objects of adoration in a credulous age, and the delight of all succeeding ones. ”

“ And you read the inscriptions on the monuments, and all these people who have disappeared from the world rise up in your imagination. You see them young, laughing, loving; you see them hale, loquacious, insolently confident in the endlessness of life. ”

“ Regarded in the right spirit, we shall wonder at the inexhaustible resources of the artist in delineating the various and opposite characters of his multifarious composition—in which no two are to be found alike,{23} and in each of which we find the appropriate idea—and the fulness of embodiment which sustains the dramatis personæ throughout, with an untiring energy of impersonation in costume, symbol, and action, which excites our warmest admiration. ”

“ In exploring the ancestry of the symbolic vision we draw nigh to that clouded majesty we divine in the depths of our being, and which is heard normally in intuition and conscience, but which now reveals character in its manifestation as the artist in his work. ”

“ The plodding foot may tread carelessly over them, the uninquiring eye may pass them, unheeded; but the poet and philosopher linger around the hallowed spot where they stand, to catch inspiration, or to gather wisdom from these silent memorials. ”

“ The meaning of these monuments may be lost to us, but we understand the spirit of trying to express the sense of beauty in the highest way possible, for it is the spirit which is still moving the world, and is the foundation of all worthy achievement. ”

“ The arising sun; the setting sun! There we have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly beginning, and the end also. ”

“ All Art that is not mere story-telling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which mediæval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy ”

“ In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the heart,—that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears,—the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera hat. ”

“ Rest with your still and solemn fame;
The hills keep record of your name,
And never can a touch of shame
Darken the buried brow.
But we on changeful days are cast,
When bright names from their place fall fast ”

“ In imaginative presentation of character, in nobility of feeling and breadth of treatment, no less than in perfection of workmanship, these are among the world's few worthy monuments to its great men. ”

“ It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike? ”

“ Scarcely have two decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem—the recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its present stage of culture and advancement. ”

“ An emblem is something that represents an object; the same as a balance is an emblem of justice, and a crown an emblem of royalty, and a scepter is an emblem of power; so we find in the 17th chapter of Exodus and 6th verse, that water is an emblem of the Holy Spirit. You find in the Smitten Rock, in the wilderness, the work of the Trinity illustrated. ”

“ If we could get away from the idea that He is a stained-glass window or a marble statue or a lovely story in a book which most men seldom read—if we could only see Him as He was, the Word made flesh, real, warm, alive, our hearts would leap. ”

“ The poet or the thinker, yearning for a new basis of art, may find in the immense mass of legends and symbols an identification between all the forms of nature in a vast harmony and mutual reflection of every beautiful object ”

“ Thus, Virtue, Vice, Honour, Disgrace, Time, Death, and the like, are not sensible objects, but ideas of the understanding.
Cec. Yes—We cannot feel them or see them, but we can think about them.
Pa. True. Now it sometimes happens that we wish to represent one of these in a visible form; that is, to offer something to the sight that shall raise a similar notion in the minds of the beholders. In order to do this, we must take some action or circumstance belonging to it, capable of being expressed by painting or sculpture, and this is called a type or emblem. ”

“ On one side, and sometimes on two opposite sides, stands a human figure in high relief, always looking toward one of the cardinal points. Upon these personages is displayed such a wealth of ornament and insignia that the figures look overburdened and encumbered, giving the idea that the chief object of the artist was the display of such adornment. ”

“ This is because extrinsic ornament, the use of words to dazzle or conceal, like jewels or cosmetics, has more effect on most readers than intrinsic beauty, be it depth of feeling or exactitude of thought. Poets are to be excused, and often applauded, for pandering to our eyes and ears instead of ministering to our souls. ”

“ Until then we come to you daily, nestling in our sweet, old home, drawing love and sympathy from your souls, bringing peace and affection to crown your spirits. Eight 18jewels [1] flash a radiance of celestial love toward you tonight from this distant place. Eight gems, polished by the hand of the Great Lapidary, shine in the crown of light that awaits you above.”
1. Referring to herself and brothers and sisters in the spirit world. ”

“ A fanciful interpretation of that emblem makes the three measures to mean the triple constituents of humanity, body, soul, and spirit. We may smile at the fantastic exposition, but let us take heed to obey the exhortation. When God's will is deeply planted within, it will work quickening change on the heavy dough of our sluggish natures. ”

“ Her head, extremely fair and exquisitely festal, was like a happy fancy, a notion of the antique, on an old precious medal, some silver coin of the Renaissance; while her slim lightness and brightness, her gaiety, her expression, her decision, contributed to an effect that might have been felt by a poet as half mythological and half conventional. ”

“ Yet the man who composed it was a vibrant personality, and whether knowingly or unwittingly, he made the book a symbol,—a symbol of uncomprehending persecution, of human fanaticism, of religious origins, of man’s instinctive seeking after something higher. ”

“ Some, perhaps, who may look into these pages, will sympathise with the Author in the pleasure he has enjoyed in following the footsteps of the ingenious Emblematists of old, and will accept the subjoined Emblem as an illustration of their common feeling upon the subject:—
Though the new be gold, some love the old. ”

“ There are representations of divinities, fabulous animals, scenes of war and of the chase and processions of people bearing tribute. At times the great compositions display imposing spectacles, a luxurious and refined array. ”

“ Certain bodily {187} positions and signs and gestures, and woven fabrics and garments of many patterns and colours, and wood and stone and metal objects, and lighted candles and perfumes—mere hay and stubble to others who have different symbols—are things essential to worship in some. Touch these things and you hurt their souls; you deprive them of their means of communication with another world. ”