Vernacular literature

“ Outlook.—"Vernon Lee possesses a mind richly imbued with the lore of the finest literature, and distinguished by just that touch of paradox, of the unexpected, which is the other indispensable requisite of the true essayist. ”

“ Could they henceforth ever expect a union between these two beings, so entirely opposed to each other, and separated by the gulf which there is between vulgar prose and sublime poetry, the one with his mania for reducing everything to scientific formulas, the other living only in the ideal, which ignores causes and is content with impressions. ”

“ He was also a poet, when the whim took him, and who is not, at an age when all existence smiles upon one?—warm-hearted, and of an artistic nature, he was made to please, and this he did without effort or affectation on his part. ”

“ The first eager desire to express himself and create took the form of those early romantic stories—The Invisible Man, The Descent of the Martians, The Time Machine, etc.—stories in which his knowledge of science and Jules Verne were not yet allied to a philosophic enthusiasm for human beings in society. ”

“ Such as they are, brilliant and luxuriant, his works remain the most abundant that have ever come from the palette of any one painter, and Veronese stands lastingly, in the history of Art, as the most amazing of all masters, both in colour and in composition. ”

“ Her complexion is fair and her eyes deep blue, while her pleasing countenance is altogether free from that insignificance of feature which is not unfrequently alleged to be characteristic of English beauty. ”

“ In my first advocacy of the importance of studying English—in a quarterly review article printed seventeen years ago—I concede "that the study of the vernacular is almost valueless as a means of education, or as an instrument of intellectual culture and discipline." ”

“ Jules Verne also produces a charmingly credible effect for the most incredible things by an adept use of a considerable amount of real knowledge of nature. But most gracefully of all does it shine in the lighter form of essay, where playful thoughts draw their analogies and illustrations from actual fact, each showing up the other, and the combination presenting a peculiar piquancy to the reader. ”

“ It was remarked by Thomas Warton [8] that, at the first revival of letters in the sixteenth century, our authors were more struck by the marvelous fables and inventions of ancient poets than by the justness of their conceptions and the purity of their style. In other words, the men of the renaissance apprehended the ancient literature as poets: the men of the Éclaircissement apprehended them as critics. In Elizabeth's day the new learning stimulated English genius to creative activity. In royal progresses, court masques, Lord Mayors' shows, and public pageants of all kinds, mythology ran mad. ”

“ Such love of nature and of art, such assiduous study of nature at different hours of the day, of the phenomena of light, and such profound study of the numerous accessories essential to beauty and effect, made an excellent landscape painter of Vernet, though his fame rests chiefly on the unrivalled excellence of his marine subjects. ”

“ In the devotion of rhetoric to either beauty or truth, there is a certain consciousness of an audience, of an external judgment: rhetoric would convince, be admired. It is the very essence of poetry to be unconscious of anything between its own moment of flight and the supreme beauty which it will never attain. Verlaine taught French poetry that wise and subtle unconsciousness. ”

“ He certainly appeared to say that something, which could hardly have been anything, grammatically, but the close to which he conducted the topic, embodied the point which underlay the whole of the extensive area which the Idea opened up for development, and turned upon the indisputable truth that the Highest Art—sculpture, music, painting, poetry—is never intelligible to the Vernacular Mind. How could any inference be more incontestable than that no Art could rise above mediocrity until a quorum of commonplace persons should be found honestly incapable of attaching any meaning to it? ”

“ Instead of seeking, like most of his contemporaries, to be Greek, Roman, or mediæval by turns, he preferred trying on all the various tricks of thought and feeling which he remarked among his unlettered townsfolk. His realism naturally drew him towards the classes where realism can deal with the real; and not the affected, the self-conscious, the deliberately attempted. Hence those wonderful little poems, the carnival songs of the gold-thread spinners, of the pastry-cooks, of the shoemakers, which give us so completely, so gracefully, the whole appearance, work, manner, gesture of the people ”

“ No doubt about it, the piece would have been written in a simple, powerful, personal style, respectful of grammar, and free from those pretentious neologisms, those documentary expressions and realistic terms of the new school,—if it had been written. But it was not written any more than spoken, and hence it could be played on all the stages, as on all the trestles, of the two worlds. An immense advantage this is for dumb shows, not to speak of the many errors of grammar and of orthoepy, which are entirely avoided in this kind of literature. ”

“ Then silent, scarcely uttering an interjection of admiration, they gazed, they contemplated. All their feelings, all their impressions, were concentrated in that look, as under any violent emotion all life is concentrated at the heart. ”

“ Yet he had time to write the most delightful and original of philosophical essays, to publish novels of which at least one—“Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny”—will rank as a classic; to deliver orations and after-dinner speeches in sparkling verse, and to write exquisite poems in rich and felicitous language on a wonderful variety of themes, the complete collection of which makes a very substantial volume. ”

“ Is it therefore a wonder that poets animated the whole universe, bestowed wings upon the winds, and arrows on the sun, and described great rivers impetuously running to precipitate themselves into the sea, and trees shooting up to heaven to repel the rays of the sun by their thick shades? These images and figures have also been received in the language of the vulgar, so natural it is for men to be sensible of the wonderful art that fills all nature. Poetry did only ascribe to inanimate creatures the art and design of the Creator, who does everything in them. ”

“ He had, already, accompanied his master on several journeys, and had a smattering of science appropriate to his condition and style of mind, but he was especially remarkable for a sort of mild philosophy, a charming turn of optimism. In his sight every thing was easy, logical, natural, and, consequently, he could see no use in complaining or grumbling. ”

“ Perhaps it was the green window curtains that made his face appear so strangely pale and ill, but his bearing also expressed an infinite weariness, as if both mind and body were wrought to their utmost tension, and his eyes betrayed nothing of that intensity of thought--which is perhaps just about to solve some scientific problem; there lay in them only that melancholy, purposeless reverie which so often absorbs the poet, so seldom the man of science. ”

“ In life’s filled, and alas, blotted pages, if, amid many smears and stains, the golden letters of GOODNESS at last begin to gleam forth in a clear predominance, he who considers wisely will not regret much the newness of the book, whose pages are only white and pure, because scarce yet written in at all. ”

“ You mean, no doubt, that, from your own experience, you fear that Vernon will hear at school many things which will shock his modesty, and much language which is evil and blasphemous; you fear that he will meet with many bad examples, and learn to look on God and godliness in a way far different from that to which he has been accustomed at home. You fear, in short, that he must pass through the same painful temptations to which you have yourself been subjected ”

“ In the third volume of his "History of English Poetry" (1781) , Thomas Warton had spoken of the "Divine Comedy" as "this wonderful compound of classical and romantic fancy, of pagan and Christian theology, of real and fictitious history, of tragical and comic incidents, of familiar and heroic manners, and of satirical and sublime poetry. But the grossest improprieties of this poem discover an originality of invention, and its absurdities often border on sublimity. We are surprised that a poet should write one hundred cantos on hell, paradise, and purgatory. ”

“ When he really began to take his predictions seriously, he began to turn out the important stuff which now bores the average s.f. enthusiast silly—or should I say sillier!
As for Verne, his stuff has never been literature except for boys. It is innocuous adventure—stuff that will not pervert morals. It is not too badly written, and the language is so simple that Verne is readily to be read in the original French, in fact some of his stuff serves as textbooks in French classes in American schools. ”

“ Looking at the engraving, and hearing of Paul Veronese's amiability and piety, one has little difficulty in thinking of the magnificent painter, as a single-hearted, simple-minded man, neither vain nor boastful, nor masterful save by the gift of genius. ”

“ Dr Warton, I think, has observed, that English poetry is chiefly deficient in lyrical productions. Songs, and sonnets, hymns, and moral stanzas, epistles, satires, and pastorals, appear to have been the favourite subjects among those of our earlier poets, who addicted themselves to minor compositions in verse. ”

“ No one seeing them in such a light could be disappointed with them, but I would forbid any more writers to write about them. Every man should be his own poet where the greater sights of the world are concerned. ”

“ And the poet will no more lament a light gone out, a glory faded; our worn-out feelings, and spirits, and appreciations, and hopes, and beliefs, and wonders, and admirations, will be restored to us new. ”

“ In the words of Warton, "The author's variety of learning, his quotations from rare and curious books, his pedantry sparkling with rude wit and shapeless elegance ... have rendered it a repertory of amusement and information." ”

“ By Vernon Lee, author of “Euphorion: Studies of the Antique and the Mediæval in the Renaissance,” “The Countess of Albany” (Famous Women Series) . 12mo. $2.00.
“Vernon Lee’s writing would stand alone in any hall of philosophy. Her reasoning is keen and subtle, her divination wonderful; her tolerance, being a woman, most wonderful of all. Her scholarship is deep and broad and serviceable. She takes rather too much pains with her ideas, but the result is that there is no doubt about her meaning. And her thought, while it has the defects of modernness, has also its virtues. ”

“ It does not require a poet to give value and significance to such a retrospect, though in this re-creation of past scenes, of the going and coming, the tramp of armies, the riding in of couriers to unfamiliar cities, there necessarily is much poetry as well as brave and heart-stirring effect, for in the panorama conjured up there is the whole sum of life, its doubt, its passion, and its tears. ”

“ All did end happily in the novel, but not in the way which Mrs. Vernon expected. Hypocrisy was unmasked, bigotry disgraced, but infidelity triumphed in success! The brilliant winding-up of the work was almost a paraphrase of the celebrated line,
"He can't be wrong whose life is in the right;"-- as if any life could be right in which the chief end of our existence, the glory of God, is disregarded! ”

“ He was modest notwithstanding his glory, and he was all the more famous for his humility.
So much honour could not but excite envy. There were those who envied him his fame; and as his theories, resting upon known facts, were in opposition to the systems of science upon the question of the central fire, he sustained with his pen and by his voice remarkable discussions with the learned of every country. ”

“ There is certainly, in the present age, a want of writing that shall rest and brace the mind; of meditative writing of a tendency merely holy and practical, rather shunning than plungingxi into controversy:—not the cry of the angry or startled bird, but its evening and morning orisons rather. ”

“ Nature was inspiring, but it had no sympathy with the human soul, which longed for more responsive companionship, more intimate communion. The maiden needed a friend, into whose soul the calm sunset of the prairies would infuse the same holy light that penetrated her own. In such moods, the looks and tones of Edward Vernon came back with vivid distinctness. ”

“ Others say that the highly developed critical judgment of a few persons, from time to time, has established forever what we agree to call masterpieces. But this discussion is immaterial, since these supreme examples of literary excellence exist in all kinds of composition,—poetry, fable, romance, ethical teaching, prophecy, interpretation, history, humor, satire, devotional flight into the spiritual and supernatural, everything in which the human mind has exercised itself,—from the days of the Egyptian moralist and the Old Testament annalist and poet down to our scientific age. ”

“ It is out of character with the mind of genius purposely to leave a work incomplete. The idea of perfection being in the mind, the hand cannot resist the operation. Then, has time had that effect upon more modern works? We appeal for evidence to the Vernon Gallery. Are the pictures there better than when they were fresh from the easel? Not one, we verily believe, and know some to be much worse. ”