DOI chapter:
Chapter III Of the Three Leaders, and of Moral Earnestness in Art
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65493#0082
48
THE SPIRIT OF
The sting has long ago gone out of
those hard names.
Over and over again, the critic will
aim some well-considered attack upon
a certain specified baseness that he per-
ceives and abhors in literature or in
art; and then, before he finishes his
good work, (and you can see from his
look that he believes it to be good
work) he suddenly decamps, with the
observation, “But this is not in the
least a question of morals; it is a ques-
tion of artistic taste.” Sometimes his
reader cannot help thinking, by con-
trast, of that quick word of the old
Greek dramatist, protesting against
some of the lewd myths of his religion,
“Say not there be adulterers in heaven,
Nor prisoner gods and jailers :—long ago
My heart hath named it vile and shall not
alter 1”
If someone nowadays should speak-
like that, might it not clear the air ? I
III
OF THREE LEADERS AND OF
THE SPIRIT OF
The sting has long ago gone out of
those hard names.
Over and over again, the critic will
aim some well-considered attack upon
a certain specified baseness that he per-
ceives and abhors in literature or in
art; and then, before he finishes his
good work, (and you can see from his
look that he believes it to be good
work) he suddenly decamps, with the
observation, “But this is not in the
least a question of morals; it is a ques-
tion of artistic taste.” Sometimes his
reader cannot help thinking, by con-
trast, of that quick word of the old
Greek dramatist, protesting against
some of the lewd myths of his religion,
“Say not there be adulterers in heaven,
Nor prisoner gods and jailers :—long ago
My heart hath named it vile and shall not
alter 1”
If someone nowadays should speak-
like that, might it not clear the air ? I
III
OF THREE LEADERS AND OF