1. Perfectly civilized human life; that is, life freed from the
necessity of humiliating labor, from passions inducing bodily disease,
and from abusing misfortune. The personages of the classical landscape,
therefore, must be virtuous and amiable; if employed in labor, endowed
with strength such as may make it not oppressive. (Considered as a
practicable ideal, the classical life necessarily implies slavery, and
the command, therefore, of a higher order of men over a lower, occupied
in servile work.) Pastoral occupation is allowable as a contrast with
city life. War, if undertaken by classical persons, must be a contest
for honor, more than for life, not at all for wealth,[3] and free from
all fearful or debasing passion. Classical persons must be trained in
all the polite arts, and, because their health is to be perfect, chiefly
in the open air. Hence, the architecture around them must be of the most
finished kind, the rough country and ground being subdued by frequent
and happy humanity.
§ 7. 2. Such personages and buildings must be associated with natural
scenery, uninjured by storms or inclemency of climate (such injury
implying interruption of the open air life); and it must be scenery
conducing to pleasure, not to material service; all cornfields,
orchards, olive-yards, and such like, being under the management of
slaves,[4] and the superior beings having nothing to do with them; but
passing their lives under avenues of scented and otherwise delightful
trees--under picturesque rocks, and by clear fountains.
§ 8. 3. The spiritual powers in classical scenery must be decorative;
ornamental gods, not governing gods; otherwise they could not be
subjected to the principles of taste, but would demand reverence. In
order, therefore, as far as possible, without taking away their
supernatural power, to destroy their dignity, they are made more
criminal and capricious than men, and, for the most part, those only are
introduced who are the lords of lascivious pleasures. For the appearance
of any great god would at once destroy the whole theory of the classical
life; therefore, Pan, Bacchus, and the Satyrs, with Venus and the
Nymphs, are the principal spiritual powers of the classical landscape.
Apollo with the Muses appear as the patrons of the liberal arts. Minerva
rarely presents herself (except to be insulted by judgment of Paris);
Juno seldom, except for some purpose of tyranny; Jupiter seldom, but for
purpose of amour.
§ 9. Such being the general ideal of the classical landscape, it can
hardly be necessary to show the reader how such charm as it possesses
must in general be strong only over weak or second-rate orders of mind.
It has, however, been often experimentally or playfully aimed at by
great men; but I shall only take note of its two leading masters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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