Moral refreshment

Thursday, February 1st., Cadogan Square, London.

Thank goodness January is over! The month seemed to be interminable, as it always does. I think it is because of Christmas - it feels somehow as if the month is starting then and so becomes five weeks or more. February always feels better psychologically even when it is cold and wet. And there are signs of bulbs emerging, and even a few snowdrops in sheltered spots. Too soon to think of Spring of course, but a definite rise in spirit.

Whenever I am sick of books (which happens now and then), and worried about the art and craft of writing and the inadequacy of themes and treatment thereof, I go out and walk through the parks and streets of shops to the National Gallery. Incidentally, street walking is under-rated in my opinion; I find it nearly as pleasurable to browse about my neighbourhood as to walk in the countryside, and easier. Sometimes I visit the Tate, and, more rarely, the Wallace Collection, but the National Gallery is the supreme place for moral refreshment. I think there are more absolute masterpieces to the square yard in the National Gallery than anywhere in Europe.

True, it is a disconcerting place. You see a picture on a wall one morning, and the next morning it is gone and has to be looked for. All good pictures are magical, but the pictures at the National Gallery have a most uncanny habit of wandering about the dark and deserted rooms at night and choosing new homes for themselves. I have followed one of my favourite pictures, that triumph of realistic idealism Masaccio's "Blue Madonna" all over the building. It seems for the moment to have settled in one place. Assimilate the Masaccio, or Mantagena's "Agony in the Garden", and they will help yourestore your moral equilibrium.

For another example, behold any of the classical pictures of Nicolas Poussin. Gods and demi-gods and mortals never lived as Poussin portrays them, in such colourings, in such lovely attitudes combining themselves together in perfect combinations. Yet their idealism is based on a fundamental realism of thruth to nature and godhead and humanity. You are obliged to say to yourself: "All things are not always like that. But, though rarely, some things are sometimes like that. And, that everything might always be like that is not beyond the power of my imagination." You are uplifted, inspired and encouraged by the vision of the possibilities of life. The same with great books.

The difficult business in a man's secret life is to maintain the balance between the idealism of an artistic creation and the realism of the daily world. The one is as necessary as the other to a full existence. You cannot, in the ardour of the search for ideal truth, repudiate the magnificent commonplace world. Some do, and they lose the world in addition to losing their own souls. The grand example of an artist who founded the highest idealism on the wildest realistic contacts with earth was Goethe, who stands alone in this respect.