Essays in Idleness

“I am, and my father was before me, a violent Tory of the old school; — the school of Walter Scott, and Homer.” I copy this motto from a notebook I was keeping at the age of fourteen.

My own education in fanaticism was conducted and directed by John Ruskin, about that age. To him I owe my continuing depreciation of Renaissance and Modern Art, even of the greatest draughtsman, Rubens; though truth to tell, I despise the Pre-Raphaelites, too, and tend to dismiss them as sentimental vomit. Ruskin was, however, my Western drawing master for rocks, rivers, trees, and ferns, in addition to the Eastern masters, and I read his instructive, fanatical books quite irresponsibly. He delivered me into J. M. W. Turner’s hands, so that I spent too much of my time in England in the Turner galleries.

I even discovered Marcel Proust there, when I found that he was another Ruskin fanatic.

Indeed, what I liked chiefly about Ruskin, was his fanaticism. It is why I was also mesmerized by Ezra Pound. I was under the growing apprehension that all the great artists were fanatics, of one sort or another, and the poets, too, and of course the “fifth gospel” of J. S. Bach, as it had been called by my saintly aunt, the organist. Perhaps fanaticism runs in my family.

As gentle reader may know, the Unicorn is distinguished by the horn in the middle of his brow. He was apparently first spotted in the Vth century, if one believes in art history. He can be caught and tamed only by virgins, and his horn, dipped in water, can nullify any poison. The reason for this is perfectly obvious. Consult those pictures in which the Unicorn is resting his head in the lap of Mary.

The Council of Trent prohibited unicorn hunting in 1563.