And What Would Life Be But For The Power To Do So?
We Do Not Sufficiently Realise The Part Which Illusion Has Played
In Our Development.
One of the prime requisites for evolution is a
certain power for adaptation to varying circumstances, that is to
say, of plasticity, bodily and mental.
But the power of adaptation
is mainly dependent on the power of thinking certain new things
sufficiently like certain others to which we have been accustomed
for us not to be too much incommoded by the change - upon the power,
in fact, of mistaking the new for the old. The power of fusing
ideas (and through ideas, structures) depends upon the power of
confusing them; the power to confuse ideas that are not very
unlike, and that are presented to us in immediate sequence, is
mainly due to the fact of the impetus, so to speak, which the mind
has upon it. We always, I believe, make an effort to see every new
object as a repetition of the object last before us. Objects are
so varied, and present themselves so rapidly, that as a general
rule we renounce this effort too promptly to notice it, but it is
always there, and it is because of it that we are able to mistake,
and hence to evolve new mental and bodily developments. Where the
effort is successful, there is illusion; where nearly successful
but not quite, there is a shock and a sense of being puzzled - more
or less, as the case may be; where it is so obviously impossible as
not to be pursued, there is no perception of the effort at all.
Mr. Locke has been greatly praised for his essay upon human
understanding. An essay on human misunderstanding should be no
less interesting and important. Illusion to a small extent is one
of the main causes, if indeed it is not the main cause, of
progress, but it must be upon a small scale. All abortive
speculation, whether commercial or philosophical, is based upon it,
and much as we may abuse such speculation, we are, all of us, its
debtors.
Leonardo da Vinci says that Sandro Botticelli spoke slightingly of
landscape-painting, and called it "but a vain study, since by
throwing a sponge impregnated with various colours against a wall,
it leaves some spots upon it, which may appear like a landscape."
Leonardo da Vinci continues: "It is true that a variety of
compositions may be seen in such spots according to the disposition
of mind with which they are considered; such as heads of men,
various animals, battles, rocky scenes, seas, clouds, words, and
the like. It may be compared to the sound of bells which may seem
to say whatever we choose to imagine. In the same manner these
spots may furnish hints for composition, though they do not teach
us how to finish any particular part." {6} No one can hate
drunkenness more than I do, but I am confident the human intellect
owes its superiority over that of the lower animals in great
measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given to imagination -
imagination being little else than another name for illusion. As
for wayside chapels, mine, when I am in London, are the shop
windows with pretty things in them.
The flowers on the slopes above Prato are wonderful, and the
village is full of nice bits for sketching, but the best thing, to
my fancy, is the church, and the way it stands, and the lovely
covered porch through which it is entered. This porch is not
striking from the outside, but I took two sketches of it from
within. There is, also, a fresco, half finished, of St. George and
the Dragon, probably of the fifteenth century, and not without
feeling. There is not much inside the church, which is modernised
and more recent than the tower. The tower is very good, and only
second, if second, in the upper Leventina to that of Quinto, which,
however, is not nearly so well placed.
The people of Prato are just as fond of cherries as those of
Primadengo, but I did not see any men in the trees. The children
in these parts are the most beautiful and most fascinating that I
know anywhere; they have black mouths all through the month of July
from the quantities of cherries that they devour. I can bear
witness that they are irresistible, for one kind old gentleman,
seeing me painting near his house, used to bring me daily a branch
of a cherry-tree with all the cherries on it. "Son piccole," he
would say, "ma son gustose" - "They are small, but tasty," which
indeed they were. Seeing I ate all he gave me - for there was no
stopping short as long as a single cherry was left - he, day by day,
increased the size of the branch, but no matter how many he brought
I was always even with him. I did my best to stop him from
bringing them, or myself from eating all of them, but it was no
use.
[Autograph which cannot be reproduced: Tlolinda Del Pietro]
Here is the autograph of one of the little black-mouthed folk. I
watch them growing up from year to year in many a village. I was
sketching at Primadengo, and a little girl of about three years
came up with her brother, a boy of perhaps eight. Before long the
smaller child began to set her cap at me, smiling, ogling, and
showing all her tricks like an accomplished little flirt. Her
brother said, "She always goes on like that to strangers." I said,
"What's her name?" "Forolinda." The name being new to me, I made
the boy write it, and here it is. He has forgotten to cross his F,
but the writing is wonderfully good for a boy of his age. The
child's name, doubtless, is Florinda.
More than once at Prato, and often elsewhere, people have wanted to
buy my sketches:
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