Ruskin contended (in that _olla podrida_
called "Modern Painters") that the Swiss peasants do not really dance and
sing happily in the market-place; and hence he argued--comically
enough--that the money spent on the stage reproduction of their happiness
should be spent in really promoting their happiness. With my Italian
peasants I feel the opposite: that such excellent picturesque effects
should not be wasted on mere reality, but should be turned to real use
upon the stage. So, too, it is difficult to take a roadside beggar
seriously; he seems to ask, not for alms, but for a frame. Happy the
unlettered and the inartistic, to whom even the picturesque person is a
person, who can think of olive oil when he sees the olive-trees weaving
their graceful patterns above the stone walls, and can watch the sun set
in lurid splendour behind the purple mountains with never a thought of
Turner or Childe Harold!
For modern civilised beings, in incessant relations with the reflections
of life through literature and art, it is difficult to receive any
impressions which do not re-reflect what lies in the mirror of art. And
here is an amusing side-issue. We are presented in plays and books, with
numerous situations in which the ignorance of one of the parties is a
necessary factor in the particular dramatic situation which it is sought
to evolve.
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