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.
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