De Domo

As Alexander stood gazing at the transparent loveliness of the Cydnus, the thought of a plunge into those generous depths, of the delicious shock of ice-cold waters amid summer heat, was too much for him; and could he have foreseen the illness that was to result from it, I believe he would have had his bath just the same. With such an example before him, can any one whose pursuits are literary miss a chance of airing his eloquence amid the glories of this spacious hall, wherein gold sheds all its lustre, whose walls are decked with the flowers of art, whose light is as the light of the sun? Shall he who might cause this roof to ring with applause, and contribute his humble share to the splendours of the place,—shall such a one content himself with examining and admiring its beauties without a word, and so depart, like one that is dumb, or silent from envy?

No man of taste or artistic sensibility, none but a dull ignorant boor, would consent thus to cut himself off from the highest of enjoyments, or could need to be reminded of the difference between the ordinary spectator and the educated man. The former, when he has carried his eyes around and upwards in silent admiration, and clasped ecstatic hands, has done all that can be expected of him; he ventures not on words, lest they should prove inadequate to his subject. With the cultured observer, it is otherwise: he, surely, will not rest content with feasting his eyes on beauty; he will not stand speechless amid his splendid surroundings, but will set his mind to work, and as far as in him lies pay verbal tribute.

Nor will his tribute consist in mere praise of the building. It was well enough, no doubt, for the islander Telemachus to express his boyish amazement in the palace of Menelaus, and to liken that prince’s gold

I feel as if a certain mental exaltation resulted from this magnificence: it is suggestive; the imagination is stimulated. It would scarcely be too much to say that through the medium of the eyes Beauty is borne in upon the mind, and suffers no thought to find utterance before it has received her impress. We hold it for true that Achilles’ wrath was whetted against the Phrygians by the sight of his new armour, and that as he donned it for the first time his lust of battle was uplifted on wings: and why should not a beautiful building similarly be a whet to the zeal of the orator? Luxuriant grass, a fine planetree and a clear spring, hard by Ilissus, were inspiration enough for Socrates: in such a spot he could sit bantering Phaedrus, refuting Lysias, and invoking the Muses; never doubting—indelicate old person—but that those virgin Goddesses would grace his retirement with their presence, and take part in his amorous discourse. But to such a place as this we may surely hope that they will come uninvited.

We can offer them

But I see about me in this Hall beauties that were never designed to please barbarians, nor to gratify the vulgar ostentation of Persian monarchs. Poverty is not here the sole requirement of the critic: taste is also necessary; nor will the eyes deliver judgement without the assistance of Reason. The eastern aspect, procuring us, as in the temples of old, that first welcome peep of the sun in his new-born glory, and suffering his rays to pour in without stint through the open doors, the adaptation of length to breadth and breadth to height, the free admission of light at every stage of the Sun’s course,—all is charmingly contrived, and redounds to the credit of the architect.

What admirable judgement has been shown, too, in the structure and decoration of the roof! nothing wanting, yet nothing superfluous; the gilding is exactly what was required to achieve elegance without empty display; it is precisely that little touch of adornment with which a beautiful and modest woman sets off her loveliness; it is the slender necklace about her neck, the light ring upon her finger, the earrings, the brooch, the fillet that imprisons her luxuriant hair, and, like the purple stripe upon a robe, enhances its beauty. Contrast with this

And so it is with this Hall, The roof—the head, as I may say,—comely in itself, is not without its golden embellishments: yet they are but as the stars, whose fires gleam here and there, pranked in the darkness of the sky. Were that sky all fire, it would be beautiful to us no longer, only terrible. Observe, too, that the gold is not otiose, not merely an ornament among ornaments, put there to flatter the eye: it diffuses soft radiance from end to end of the building, and the walls are tinged with its warm glow. Striking upon the gilded beams, and mingling its brightness with theirs, the daylight glances down upon us with a clearness and a richness not all its own.

Such are the glories overhead, whose praises might best be sung by him who told of Helen’s high-vaulted chamber, and Olympus’ dazzling peak.

And for the rest, the frescoed walls, with their exquisite colouring, so clear, so highly finished, so true to nature, to what can I compare them but to a flowery meadow in spring? Even so the comparison halts. Those flowers wither and decay and shed their beauty: but here is one eternal spring; this meadow fades not, its flowers are everlasting; for no hand is put forth to pluck away their sweetness, only the eye feeds thereon,

What orator would not feel that his credit was at stake, and be fired with ambition to surpass himself, rather than be found wanting to his theme?

The contemplation of beautiful objects is of all things the most inspiring, and not to men only. I think even a horse must feel some increase of pleasure in galloping over smooth, soft fields, that give an easy footing, and ring back no defiance to his hoofs: it is then that he goes his best; the beauty of his surroundings puts him on his mettle; he will not be beaten, if pace counts for anything. And look at the peacock.

Spring has just begun; never are flowers a gladder sight than now; it is as if they were really brighter, their hues more fresh, than at other times. Watch the bird, as he struts forth into some meadow: he spreads his feathers, and displays them to the Sun; up goes his tail, a towered circle of flowery plumage; for with him too it is spring, and the meadow challenges him to do his utmost. See how he turns about, and shows forth his gorgeous beauty. As the sun’s rays strike upon him, the wonder grows: there is a subtle transmutation of colours, one glory vanishing and giving place to another. The change is nowhere more apparent than in those rainbow rings at the ends of his feathers: here a slight movement turns bronze to gold, and (such is the potency of light) purple becomes green, because sun is exchanged for shadow.

As for the sea, I need not remind you how inviting, how attractive, is its appearance on a calm day: the veriest landlubber must long to be upon it, and sail far away from the shore, as he marks how the light breeze fills the sails and speeds the vessel on its gentle gliding course over the crests of the waves.

The beauty of this Hall has a similar power over the orator, encouraging him, stimulating him to fresh effort, enlarging his ambition, The spell was irresistible: I have yielded to it, and

Scarcely have I pronounced these last words, when a certain Theory (and a very sound one, too, if we can take its own word for it), which has been interrupting me all along, and doing its best to break my speech off, informs me that there is no truth - in my statements, and expresses its surprise at my assertion that gilding and mural decoration ate favourable to the display of rhetorical skill. The very contrary, it maintains, is the case. On second thoughts, it may as well come forward and plead its own cause; you, gentlemen, will kindly serve as jury, and hear what it has to say in favour of the cheap and nasty in architecture, considered as rhetorical conditions. My own sentiments on this subject you have already heard, nor is there any occasion for me to repeat them. The Theory is therefore at liberty to speak; I will withdraw for a while, and hold my tongue.

‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ it begins, ‘a splendid tribute has been paid to this Hall by the last speaker; and I for my part am so far from having any fault to find with the building, that I propose to supply the deficiencies of his encomium; for by magnifying its glories, I am so much the nearer to proving my point, which is, its unsuitableness to the purposes of the orator. And first I shall ask your permission to avail myself of his simile of feminine adornments. In my opinion, it is not enough to: say that lavish ornament adds nothing to feminine beauty: it actually takes away from it. Dazzled by gold and costly gems, how should the beholder do justice to the charms of a clear complexion, to neck, and eye, and arm, and finger? Sards and emeralds, bracelets and necklaces, claim all his attention, and the lady has the mortification of finding herself eclipsed

The same fate, it seems to me, awaits the orator who exhibits his skill amid these wondrous works of art: his praises are obscured, quite swallowed up, in the splendour of the things he praises. It is as if a man should bring a wax light to feed a mighty conflagration, or set up an ant for exhibition on a camel’s or an elephant’s back. That is one pitfall for the orator. And there is another: the distracting influence of that resonant music that echoes through the Hall, making voluminous answer to his words, nay, drowning them in the utterance; surely as trumpet quells flute, or the sea-roar the boatswain’s pipe, if he presume to contend with the crash of waves, so surely shall the orator’s puny voice be overmastered by this mighty music, and seem like silence.

‘Then again, my opponent spoke of the stimulating, the encouraging effect produced on the speaker by architectural beauty. I should have said that the effect was rather dispiriting than otherwise: the speaker’s thoughts are scattered, and his confidence shaken, as he reflects on the disgrace that must attach to mean words uttered beneath a noble roof. There could be no more crushing ignominy; he is precisely in the position of a warrior in brilliant armour who sets the example of flight, and whose cowardice is only emphasized by his splendid equipment. To this principle I should refer the conduct of Homer’s model orator, who, so far from attaching any importance to externals, affected the bearing of a man that was altogether witless; his design was to bring his eloquence into stronger relief by the studied ungracefulness of his attitude.

‘The orator’s mind, too, is so engrossed with what he sees, that it is absolutely impossible for him to preserve the thread of his discourse; he cannot think of what he is saying, so imperatively do the sights around him claim his attention. It is

And I might add that his supposed hearers, when they come into such a building as this, are no longer hearers of his eloquence, but spectators of its beauties; he must be a Thamyris, an Amphion, an Orpheus among orators who could gain their attention in such circumstances. Once let a man cross this threshold, and a blaze of beauty envelops his senses; he is all eyes, and to the orator is "as one that marketh not”;—unless, indeed, he be altogether blind, or take a hint from the court of Areopagus, and give audience in the dark.

Compare the story of the Sirens with that of the Gorgons, if you would know how insignificant is the power of words in comparison with that of visible objects. The enchantments of the former were at the best a matter of time; they did but flatter the ear with pleasing songs; if the mariner landed, he remained long on their hands, and it has even happened to them to be disregarded altogether. But the beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration (so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing: now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?

A sage, then, shall be my witness, how far mightier are the things of the eye than those of the ear. Usher, call me Herodotus, son of Lyxes, of Halicarnassus.—Ah, since he has been so obliging as to hear the summons, let him step into the box. You will excuse the Ionic dialect; it is his way.’

Gentlemen of the jury, the Theory hath spoken sooth. Give good heed to that he saith, how sight is a better thing

'You hear him, gentlemen? He gives the preference to sight, and rightly. For words have wings; they are no sooner out of the mouth than they take flight and are lost: but the delight of the eyes is ever present, ever draws the beholder to itself.