178 THE STONES OF VENICE

impurity and malice stealing gradually into the nobler forms, and invention and wit elevating the lower, according to the countless minglings of the elements of the human soul.

§ 59. (c) Ungovernableness of the imagination. The reader is always to keep in mind¹ that if the objects of horror in which the terrible grotesque finds its materials were contemplated in their true light, and with the entire energy of the soul, they would cease to be grotesque, and become altogether sublime; and that therefore it is some shortening of the power, or the will, of contemplation, and some consequent distortion of the terrible image in which the grotesqueness consists. Now this distortion takes place, it was above asserted, in three ways; either through apathy, satire, or ungovernableness of imagination. It is this last cause of the grotesque which we have finally to consider; namely, the error and wildness of the mental impressions, caused by fear operating upon strong powers of imagination, or by the failure of the human faculties in the endeavour to grasp the highest truths.

§ 60. The grotesque which comes to all men in a disturbed dream is the most intelligible example of this kind, but also the most ignoble; the imagination, in this instance, being entirely deprived of all aid from reason, and incapable of self-government. I believe, however, that the noblest forms of imaginative power are also in some sort ungovernable, and have in them something of the character of dreams;² so that the vision, of whatever kind, comes uncalled, and will not submit itself to the seer, but conquers him, and forces him to speak as a prophet, having no power over his words or thoughts.* Only, if the whole man be trained perfectly, and

* This opposition of art to inspiration is long and gracefully dwelt upon by Plato in his Phædrus; using, in the course of his argument, almost the words of St. Paul: kallion martnronsin oi palaioi manian swfrosunhV, thn ek qeon ths par anqrwpwn gignomenhs : “It is the testimony of the ancients, that the

¹ [The “Travellers’ Edition” omits “(c) Ungovernableness of the imagination,” and reads “And he must also keep in mind...”]

² [See Vol. IV. p. 222 n., and the General Index, s. “Dreams.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]