d sculptor, to the awful responsibilities they
labour under. With regard to the sensualist,--who is omnivorous, and
swine-like, assimilates indifferently pure and impure, degrading
everything he hears or sees,--little can be said beyond this; that
for him, if the artist _be_ without sin, he is not answerable. But in
this responsibility he has two rigid yet just judges, God and
himself;--let him answer there before that tribunal. God will acquit
or condemn him only as he can acquit or condemn himself.

_Kalon._ But, under any circumstance, beautiful nude flesh
beautifully painted must kindle sensuality; and, described as
beautifully in poetry, it will do the like, almost, if not quite, as
readily. Sculpture is the only form of art in which it can be used
thoroughly pure, chaste, unsullied, and unsullying. I feel,
Christian, that you mean this. And see what you do!--What a vast
domain of art you set a Solomon's seal upon! how numberless are the
poems, pictures, and statues--the most beautiful productions of their
authors--you put in limbo! To me, I confess, it appears the very top
of prudery to condemn these lovely creations, merely because they
quicken some men's pulses.

_Kosmon._ And, to me, it appears hypercriticism to object to
pictures, poems, and statues, calling them not works of art--or fine
art--because they have no higher purpose than eye or ear-delight. If
this law be held to be good, very few pictures called of the English
school--of the English school, did I say?--very few pictures at all,
of any school, are safe from condemnation: almost all the Dutch must
suffer judgment, and a very large proportion of modern sculpture,
poetry, and music, will not pass. Even "Christabel" and the "Eve of
St. Agnes" could not stand the ordeal.

_Christian._ Oh, Kalon, you hardly need an answer! What! shall the
artist spend weeks and months, nay, sometimes years, in thought and
study, contriving and perfecting some beautiful invention,--in order
only that men's pulses may be quickened? What!--can he, jesuit-like,
dwell in the house of soul, only to discover where to sap her
foundations?--Satan-like, does he turn his angel of light into a
fiend of darkness, and use his God-delegated might against its giver,
making Astartes and Molochs to draw other thousands of innocent lives
into the embrace of sin? And as for you, Kosmon, I regard purpose as
I regard soul; one is not more the light of the thought than the
other is the li