TOWARDS A THEORY OF LIFE 142 1 



gallop together, which each of us, and each horse too, has enjoyed ; 

 since the man is thus virtually endowed with strength and speed 

 far beyond his ordinary powers, and the animal roused to his fullest 

 by encouraging mastery. What, then, more natural than that when 

 man's mastery was new and wonderful, there should arise the 

 splendid image ol horse and man as one. Skilful fingers even shaped 

 that vivid dream into actual form. Since then has not the Centaur 

 galloped through man's imagination and mytho-poesy ; and have 

 we not freshened this for ourselves anew, by our own ride ? And when 

 at full gallop, and in that splendid leap, have we not had the nearest 

 approach to flying possible to man before recent machines, and surely 

 in some ways a finer one? How, then, can we help rejoicing when 

 the artist models for us the winged Pegasus on frieze high overhead ? 

 Kindred dreams, also derived and combined from familiar im- 

 pressions, have also each had their day; yet even in ours they return 

 to life for us when we wake from our conventionalised dullness, to 

 vision them anew. Thus, what image more mysterious and signifi- 

 cant, inviting yet appalling, than that union of woman's gentle and 

 arresting face and tender bosom, with all their calm and dignity, 

 yet set on the tigress's body? No wonder that this remains to us, 

 from ancient Egypt, as still supreme symbol of her whose charm 

 ever attracts, whose character ever perplexes us? We men cannot 

 but realise how she reads us through and through, how she holds 

 us in her power from cradle to grave, and this with gentleness of 

 authority, yet at times with resistless stroke of talon as well. Again, 

 the man-headed bull of Assyrian autocracy, the sinister Minotaur of 

 Hellenic maiden-tribute to Cretan tyranny, are examples enough of 

 how sense-impressions, emotionally recalled and combined, yield 

 us imaginately creative art. There is here no external spiritual 

 influx; it is but the arousal of the everyday mind to its deeper, 

 higher, latent powers, and impelling, disciplining the hand to shape 

 them. But if reader and writer, neither of us sculptors, try to make 

 any such image, we shall find it no easy matter to shape man and 

 horse as Centaur, or even give wings to Pegasus. If we give our lives 

 to sculpture, we think out our design with all the anatomy we can 

 master, and long labours as well; yet the freshness of the first 

 imaging fails us, the work lacks life. Yet at some fresh emotioned 

 moment our living imagery returns anew: we see the right changes 

 to make, the touches to give life; so now the Centaur rides forth 

 in all his glory. There then is the process of Art, from sense-impres- 

 sions inwardly combined into vivid day dreams (it would seem 

 rarely in dreams of sleep) : thereafter designed and laboured. It may 

 be long before it satisfies us, yet at length comes renewed emotion, 

 raised to the level of poesy, which can be in marble or bronze, in 

 colour or in music, as well as in speech and song. Thus is created 

 an enduring work of art. 



