the weaker. We do not look back into the soul of the criminal, but forward to his fate, and to the effects of his act. As soon as we begin to tremble, all delicacy of taste is hushed. The main impression entirely occupies our soul, and abolishes the accessory ideas, to which the low particularly belongs. Hence the theft of young Ruhberg, in the Crime of Ambition, is not repulsive upon the stage, but truly tragical. The author has managed the circumstances so dexterously, that we are hurried along without a breathing space. The fearful misery of his family, and particularly the sorrow of his father, are objects which draw our whole attention from the criminal to the results of his deed. We are far too much affected, to admit the representation of the infamy with which the theft is branded. In short - the low is concealed by the fearful. It is curious, that this theft of young Ruhberg, actually perpetrated, is not so repulsive, as the mere groundless suspicion of a theft in another play, where a young officer is undeservedly accused of having stolen a silver spoon, which is afterwards found. Here then the low is only imagined, a mere suspicion, and yet it does an irretrievable injury, in our æsthetic representation, to the innocent hero of the piece. The reason is, because the supposition that a man could act in a low way, evinces no very stable opinion of his morals, as conventional laws require that one should be considered an honest man so long as he does not manifest the contrary. If then we couple anything contemptible with him, it seems as if he had sometime or other given a pretext for the possibility of such suspicion; although what is low in an unmerited suspicion pertains properly to the accuser. In the play alluded to, the injury done to the hero is increased, since he is an officer, and in love with a lady of rank and culture. With both these predicates, the predicate of theft makes a woful contrast, and it is impossible, if he is with his fair lady, not to recollect for a moment that he might have the silver spoon in his pocket. The greatest misfortune is that he never guesses the suspicion resting upon him; for were this the case, he would, as an officer, demand a bloody satisfaction. Then the results would pass over into the fearful, and the low would disappear. Still we must accurately distinguish the low in disposition from the low in action. The first is beneath æsthetic dignity, the last may often very well agree with it. Slavery is low, but a slavish disposition in freedom is contemptible; on the contrary, a slavish occupation without such a disposition is not so; rather may lowness of condition, united with grandeur of disposition, pass into Sublimity. The master of Epictetus, who chastised him, acted in a low way, and the beaten slave evinced an elevated soul. True greatness beams from a lowly lot all the more nobly, and the artist need not fear to represent his hero with a mean outside, if he is only assured, that the expression of internal worth is at his bidding. But that which may be permitted to the poet, is not always allowable for the painter. The former brings his object only before the fancy, the latter, on the other hand, immediately before the senses. Thus the impression of a painting is not only more lively than that of a poem, but the painter also cannot make the internal so apparent by his natural signs, as the poet can by his arbitrary signs, and yet the internal alone can reconcile us with its external development. If Homer represents his Ulysses in beggar's rags, it depends upon us how far we carry out this image, and how long we dwell upon it. But in no case has it sufficient liveliness of coloring, to become unpleasant or disgusting to us. But if the painter or even the dramatist should imitate faithfully Homer's Ulysses, we should turn from it with repugnance. In this case we do not have the force of the impression in our own power; we must see what the painter shows us, and we cannot so easily ignore the disagreeable accessory ideas, which are thus brought to our remembrance. |