The Defendant

same conception applies to noses. To insist that one type of face is
ugly because it differs from that of the Venus of Milo is to look at it
entirely in a misleading light. It is strange that we should resent
people differing from ourselves; we should resent much more violently
their resembling ourselves. This principle has made a sufficient hash of
literary criticism, in which it is always the custom to complain of the
lack of sound logic in a fairy tale, and the entire absence of true
oratorical power in a three-act farce. But to call another man's face
ugly because it powerfully expresses another man's soul is like
complaining that a cabbage has not two legs. If we did so, the only
course for the cabbage would be to point out with severity, but with
some show of truth, that we were not a beautiful green all over.

But this frigid theory of the beautiful has not succeeded in conquering
the art of the world, except in name. In some quarters, indeed, it has
never held sway. A glance at Chinese dragons or Japanese gods will show
how independent are Orientals of the conventional idea of facial and
bodily regularity, and how keen and fiery is their enjoyment of real
beauty, of goggle eyes, of sprawling claws, of gaping mouths and
writhing coils. In the Middle Ages men broke away from the Greek
standard of beauty, and lifted up in adoration to heaven great towers,
which seemed alive with dancing apes and devils. In the full summer of
technical artistic perfection the revolt was carried to its real
consummation in the study of the faces of men. Rembrandt declared the
sane and manly gospel that a man was dignified, not when he was like a
Greek god, but when he had a strong, square nose like a cudgel, a
boldly-blocked head like a helmet, and a jaw like a steel trap.

This branch of art is commonly dismissed as the grotesque. We have never
been able to understand why it should be humiliating to be laughable,
since it is giving an elevated artistic pleasure to others. If a
gentleman who saw us in the street were suddenly to burst into tears at
the mere thought of our existence, it might be considered disquieting
and uncomplimentary; but laughter is not uncomplimentary. In truth,
however, the phrase 'grotesque' is a misleading description of ugliness
in art. It does not follow that either the Chinese dragons or the Gothic
gargoyles or the goblinish old women of Rembrandt were in the least
intended to be comic. Their extravagance was not the extravagance of
satire, but simply the extravagance of vitality; and here lies the whole
key of the place of ugliness in aesthetics. We like to see a crag jut
out in shameless decision from the cliff, we like to see the red pines
stand up hardily upon a high cliff, we like to see a chasm cloven from
end to end of a mountain. With equally noble enthusiasm we like to see a
nose jut out decisively, we like to see the red hair of a friend stand
up hardily in bristles upon his head, we like to see his mouth broad and
clean cut like the mountain crevasse. At least some of us like all this;
it is not a question of humour. We do not burst with amusement at the
first sight of the pines or the chasm; but we like them because they are
expressive of the dramatic stillness of Nature, her bold experiments,
her definite departures, her fearlessness and savage pride in her
children. The moment we have snapped the spell of conventional beauty,
there are a million beautiful faces waiting for us everywhere, just as
there are a million beautiful spirits.



       *       *       *       *       *

A DEFENCE OF FARCE


I have never been able to understand why certain forms of art should be
marked off as something debased and trivial. A comedy is spoken of as
'degenerating into farce'; it would be fair criticism to speak of it
'changing into farce'; but as for degenerating into farce, we might
equally reasonably speak of it as degenerating into tragedy. Again, a
story is spoken of as 'melodramatic,' and the phrase, queerly enough, is
not meant as a compliment. To speak of something as 'pantomimic' or
'sensational' is innocently supposed to be biting, Heaven knows why, for
all works of art are sensations, and a good pantomime (now extinct) is
one of the pleasantest sensations of all. 'This stuff is fit for a
detective story,' is often said, as who should say, 'This stuff is fit
for an epic.'

Whatever may be the rights and wrongs of this mode of classification,
there can be no doubt about one most practical and disastrous effect of
it. These lighter or wilder forms of art, having no standard set up for
them, no gust of generous artistic pride to lift them up, do actually
tend to become as bad as they are supposed to be. Neglected children of
the great mother, they grow up in darkness, dirty and unlettered, and
when they are right they are right almost by accident, because of the
blood in their veins. The common detective story of mystery and murder
seems to the intelligent reader to be little except a strange glimpse of
a planet peopled by congenital idiots, who cannot find the end of their
own noses or the character of their own wives. The common pantomime
seems like some horrible satiric picture of a world without cause or
effect, a mass of 'jarring atoms,' a prolonged mental torture of
irrelevancy. The ordinary farce seems a world of almost piteous
vulgarity, where a half-witted and stunted creature is afraid when his
wife comes home, and amused when she sits down on the doorstep. All this
is, in a sense, true, but it is the fault of nothing in heaven or earth
except the attitude and the phrases quoted at the beginning of this
article. We have no doubt in the world that, if the other forms of art
had been equally despised, they would have been equally despicable. If
people had spoken of 'sonnets' with the same accent with which they
speak of 'music-hall songs,' a sonnet would have been a thing so
fearful and wonderful that we almost regret we cannot have a specimen; a
rowdy sonnet is a thing to dream about. If people had said that epics
were only fit for children and nursemaids, 'Paradise Lost' might have
been an average pantomime: it might have been called 'Harlequin Satan,