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PYGMALION AND THE IMAGE

[Illustration: _William Morris_

_From the painting by G. F. Watts. R.A._]

[Illustration]




  [Illustration]

  PYGMALION AND
  THE IMAGE BY
  WILLIAM MORRIS
  ILLVSTRATED WITH
  PICTVRES BY SIR EDWARD
  BVRNE-JONES

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK R·H·RVSSELL PVBLISHER MCMIII




  _Copyright, 1903_
  _By_ ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL

  _Published October, 1903_




  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  BY SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, BART.


    _Portrait of William Morris_      Frontispiece
    _From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A._

    _The Heart Desires_      PAGE  8

    _The Hand Refrains_       "   16

    _The Godhead Fires_       "   24

    _The Soul Attains_        "   32




[Illustration: W]ith the exception of "The Doom of King Acrisius,"
"Pygmalion and the Image" is the only poem of _The Earthly Paradise_
for the illustration of which Burne-Jones actually executed a complete
series of pictures; and though the finished paintings are but four in
number, and the original designs, made in 1866-1867, were twelve, the
numerically smaller set is complete in the best sense, since not only
does it illustrate fully the text and spirit of Morris's poem, but each
picture in it, though finished with the loving care and elaboration
which Burne-Jones lavished on his paintings, fails of its full
significance unless considered in its relation to the series of which
it forms a part.

In regard to the poem itself, the inspiration of these pictures, even
the most casual study will bring in its train a conviction that the
story as told by William Morris is far superior to any other version
of classic or of modern times. The poem (one of the best of those
comprised in _The Earthly Paradise_) is homogeneous and admirably
balanced in all its parts; its superiority, however, over all other
versions, is not due primarily to the manner of its narration, but
arises from its greater spirituality--a finer feeling rather than a
finer form. Prior to the appearance of "Pygmalion and the Image" each
narrator of the legend had dwelt mainly on the physical side, sensuous
or sensual according to his temperament, of the tale. In Morris's
version the dominant note is the passionate delight--enthusiasm verging
upon madness--of the artist and craftsman in his own handiwork,
reflecting, to a marked degree, Morris's own temperament, one of the
leading characteristics of which was his habit of hurling himself
headlong into each new project as it claimed his attention from time
to time. That he was prevented thereby from arriving at perfection
in any one art need not lessen the admiration due to him for his
whole-souled (though usually short-lived) absorption in many and
diverse arts. A great poet, in the sense that Chaucer, his master
and model, was great, Morris was not; but no one can deny to him the
title of an enthusiastic and skilled craftsman of verse. It is this
love of craftsmanship for its own sake, joined to a remarkable feeling
for decorative beauty which both possessed, that binds the pictures
of Burne-Jones and this poem by Morris so closely together that they
form one perfect whole. Even the ideal and wholly imaginary world in
which their figures move is the same--a land where emotion rather than
passion bears sway, where the fates of man and of woman are determined
by a whim of the gods rather than dominated by the chivalrous or devout
hardihood of the individual.

In his "Apology" prefixed to _The Earthly Paradise_, Morris clearly and
definitely disclaims any moral purpose in the poems comprised in it.

"Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?" he writes. How
far this feeling was shared by Burne-Jones we can never know, but
nearly all of his biographers are agreed that a love of beauty, as
he understood it, was his main preoccupation, or, to use his own
words, that a picture should be a "beautiful, romantic dream." Julia
Cartwright, in her _Life and Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones_, says:
"He never tried to point a moral or to teach a lesson; but he rescued
beauty from the forgetfulness to which it seemed doomed in a restless
and material age, and in so doing has given us an example of the
highest value." Malcolm Bell, also, writing of the art of Burne-Jones
and of its critics, expresses a like opinion, and his analysis of the
paintings composing the Pygmalion Series is not only interesting in
itself, but is especially so as showing the extent to which the man of
letters can read his own interpretation into the work of a painter.

"The four pictures from 'The Story of Pygmalion,'" he writes, "also
included in _The Earthly Paradise_, again show this preference of the
poet and the artist for the spirit before the form, provided only the
last be beautiful. The first, 'The Heart Desires,' is the idealization
of unsatisfied longing for the unknown. Pygmalion, a tall, dark-haired
young man, in a long garment falling in straight folds to his feet,
stands brooding on life's emptiness in the vestibule of his house. A
sculptured group of the Three Graces denotes his profession and at the
same time typifies the cold beauty of artifice, the beauty of the mind,
while two girls, seen through the open door, speeding along the street
in the artless embrace of innocent maidenhood, represent the beauty of
the body and the love that waits his winning; but in neither finds he
consolation. In the second, 'The Hand Refrains,' the days of long labor
are ended, and the artist's ideal, the cold, pure figure of the yet
soulless image stands finished on the still rough pedestal, surrounded
by flakes and chips of marble and implements of the sculptor's craft,
while Pygmalion, chisel and mallet in hand, stays gazing in awe at the
marvel his hand has achieved, his eyes content, but his soul still
hungering. Outside the window behind him women go about their daily
business in the city street, and through another casement, in a recess
between him and the image, is a glimpse of a garden and a spurt of
water falling into a marble basin--the constant dropping that wears
away the stone, as his constant prayers shall move the goddess Venus
to a miracle on his behalf. The third bears the motto, 'The Godhead
Fires.' Into the sculptor's chamber, silent and solitary, while
Pygmalion is away in the temple, floats lightly the Queen of Love,
clad in a soft, transparent robe, flower-crowned and bearing a branch
of myrtle, emblem of marriage rites, her feet brushed and environed
by the white wings of her favorite doves. Towards her, leaning both
arms on one uplifted from the goddess's side, an exquisite piece of
composition, the awakening image stoops from the carved capital,
blossom-strewn by the adoring Pygmalion, her eyes raised in awe up to
the goddess, who with fixed gaze and pointed finger inspires her with
the Promethean fire of life. Lastly, 'The Soul Attains.' Heart and soul
are alike satisfied. Pygmalion kneels, looking up in trembling worship
at the beautiful creature who lingeringly yields him her hands, though
she still gazes out beyond him in dumb amazement at the mystery of
consciousness that has suddenly been born in her. Marble no longer, but
not yet altogether woman."

"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time," is even more appropriate
to Burne-Jones than to its author, William Morris, and it is an
ever-to-be-regretted misfortune that two poems only of those comprised
in _The Earthly Paradise_ should have received at his hands that
illuminative pictorial treatment which he, "the arch-dreamer of the
nineteenth century," as Cosmo Monkhouse styles him, alone could
give. Thanks to Mr. Frederick Hollyer, we have in the reproductions
which follow faithful transcripts, in all but color, of the original
paintings, and can carry out, after the lapse of a quarter of a century
and in another hemisphere, a project which both Burne-Jones and William
Morris held dear, but which neither of them lived to see realized. To
their memory this book, together with the recently re-issued _Doom of
King Acrisius_, is dedicated.

  FITZROY CARRINGTON.

  ORIENTA COTTAGE,
  MAMARONECK, NEW YORK,
  DECEMBER ELEVENTH, 1902




[Illustration: A] MAN OF CYPRUS, A SCULPTOR NAMED PYGMALION, MADE
AN IMAGE OF A WOMAN, FAIRER THAN ANY THAT HAD YET BEEN SEEN, AND IN
THE END CAME TO LOVE HIS OWN HANDIWORK AS THOUGH IT HAD BEEN ALIVE:
WHEREFORE, PRAYING TO VENUS FOR HELP, HE OBTAINED HIS END, FOR SHE MADE
THE IMAGE ALIVE INDEED, AND A WOMAN, AND PYGMALION WEDDED HER.

  _WILLIAM MORRIS_




  [Illustration: A]t Amathus, that from the southern side
  Of Cyprus looks across the Syrian sea,
  There did in ancient time a man abide
  Known to the island-dwellers, for that he
  Had wrought most godlike works in imagery,
  And day by day still greater honor won,
  Which man our old books call Pygmalion.

  Yet in the praise of men small joy he had,
  But walked abroad with downcast, brooding face.
  Nor yet by any damsel was made glad;
  For, sooth to say, the women of that place
  Must seem to all men an accursed race,
  Who with the turner of all hearts once strove,
  So in their hearts must carry lust for love.

  Now on a day it chanced that he had been
  About the streets, and on the crowded quays,
  Rich with unopened wealth of bales, had seen
  The dark-eyed merchants of the Southern seas
  In chaffer with the base Propoetides,
  And heavy-hearted gat him home again,
  His once-loved life grown idle, poor, and vain.

  And there upon his images he cast
  His weary eyes, yet little noted them,
  As still from name to name his swift thought passed,
  For what to him was Juno's well-wrought hem,
  Diana's shaft, or Pallas' olive-stem?
  What help could Hermes' rod unto him give,
  Until with shadowy things he came to live?

  Yet note, that though, while looking on the sun,
  The craftsman o'er his work some morn of spring
  May chide his useless labor never done,
  For all his murmurs, with no other thing
  He soothes his heart, and dulls thought's poisonous sting,
  And thus in thought's despite the world goes on;
  And so it was with this Pygmalion.

  Unto the chisel must he set his hand,
  And slowly, still in troubled thought must pace
  About a work begun, that there doth stand,
  And still returning to the self-same place,
  Unto the image now must set his face,
  And with a sigh his wonted toil begin,
  Half loathed, half loved, a little rest to win.

  The lessening marble that he worked upon,
  A woman's form now imaged doubtfully,
  And in such guise the work had he begun,
  Because when he the untouched block did see
  In wandering veins that form there seemed to be,
  Whereon he cried out in a careless mood,
  "O lady Venus, make this presage good!

  "And then this block of stone shall be thy maid,
  And, not without rich golden ornament,
  Shall bide within thy quivering myrtle-shade."
  So spoke he, but the goddess, well content,
  Unto his hand such godlike mastery sent,
  That like the first artificer he wrought,
  Who made the gift that woe to all men brought.

  And yet, but such as he was wont to do,
  At first indeed that work divine he deemed,
  And as the white chips from the chisel flew
  Of other matters languidly he dreamed,
  For easy to his hand that labor seemed,
  And he was stirred with many a troubling thought,
  And many a doubt perplexed him as he wrought.

  And yet, again, at last there came a day
  When smoother and more shapely grew the stone,
  And he, grown eager, put all thought away
  But that which touched his craftsmanship alone;
  And he would gaze at what his hands had done,
  Until his heart with boundless joy would swell
  That all was wrought so wonderfully well.

  Yet long it was ere he was satisfied,
  And with his pride that by his mastery
  This thing was done, whose equal far and wide
  In no town of the world a man could see,
  Came burning longing that the work should be
  E'en better still, and to his heart there came
  A strange and strong desire he could not name.

  The night seemed long, and long the twilight seemed,
  A vain thing seemed his flowery garden fair;
  Though through the night still of his work he dreamed,
  And though his smooth-stemmed trees so nigh it were
  That thence he could behold the marble hair,
  Naught was enough, until with steel in hand
  He came before the wondrous stone to stand.

  No song could charm him, and no histories
  Of men's misdoings could avail him now--
  Nay, scarcely seaward had he turned his eyes
  If men had said, "The fierce Tyrrhenians row
  Up through the bay; rise up and strike a blow
  For life and goods"; for naught to him seemed dear
  But to his well-loved work to be anear.

  Then vexed he grew, and, knowing not his heart,
  Unto himself he said, "Ah, what is this
  That I who oft was happy to depart
  And wander where the boughs each other kiss
  'Neath the west wind, now have no other bliss
  But in vain smoothing of this marble maid,
  Whose chips this month a drachma had outweighed?

  "Lo! I will get me to the woods and try
  If I my woodcraft have forgotten quite,
  And then, returning, lay this folly by,
  And eat my fill, and sleep my sleep anight,
  And 'gin to carve a Hercules aright
  Upon the morrow, and perchance indeed
  The Theban will be good to me at need."

  With that he took his quiver and his bow,
  And through the gates of Amathus he went,
  And towards the mountain <DW72>s began to go,
  Within the woods to work out his intent.
  Fair was the day, the honied bean-field's scent
  The west wind bore unto him; o'er the way
  The glittering, noisy poplar leaves did play.

  All things were moving; as his hurried feet
  Passed by, within the flowery swath he heard
  The sweeping of the scythe, the swallow fleet
  Rose over him, the sitting partridge stirred
  On the field's edge; the brown bee by him whirred,
  Or murmured in the clover flowers below;
  But he with bowed-down head failed not to go.

  At last he stopped, and, looking round, he said,
  "Like one whose thirtieth year is well gone by,
  The day is getting ready to be dead;
  No rest, and on the border of the sky
  Already the great banks of dark haze lie;
  No rest--what do I midst this stir and noise?--
  What part have I in these unthinking joys?"

  With that he turned, and towards the city gate
  Through the sweet fields went swifter than he came,
  And cast his heart into the hands of fate;
  Nor strove with it, when higher 'gan to flame
  That strange and strong desire without a name;
  Till panting, thinking of naught else, once more
  His hand was on the latch of his own door.

  One moment there he lingered, as he said,
  "Alas! what should I do if she were gone?"
  But even with that word his brow waxed red
  To hear his own lips name a thing of stone,
  As though the gods some marvel there had done,
  And made his work alive; and therewithal,
  In turn, great pallor on his face did fall.

  But with a sigh he passed into the house;
  Yet even then his chamber door must hold,
  And listen there, half blind and timorous,
  Until his heart should wax a little bold;
  Then, entering, motionless and white and cold,
  He saw the image stand amidst the floor
  That whitened was by labor done before.


  _The Heart Desires_


  [Illustration]


  Blinded with tears, his chisel up he caught,
  And, drawing near and sighing, tenderly
  Upon the marvel of the face he wrought,
  E'en as he used to pass the long days by;
  But his sighs changed to sobbing presently,
  And on the floor the useless steel he flung,
  And, weeping loud, about