intellectual influences, largely
negative, indeed, but subtle and influential. The mark in most of the
arts of this time was a certain quality which those who like it would
call "uniqueness of aspect," and those who do not like it "not quite
coming off." I mean the thing meant something from one standpoint; but
its mark was that the _smallest_ change of standpoint made it unmeaning
and unthinkable--a foolish joke. A beggar painted by Rembrandt is as
solid as a statue, however roughly he is sketched in; the soul can walk
all round him like a public monument. We see he would have other
aspects; and that they would all be the aspects of a beggar. Even if one
did not admit the extraordinary qualities in the painting, one would
have to admit the ordinary qualities in the sitter. If it is not a
masterpiece it is a man. But a nocturne by Whistler of mist on the
Thames is either a masterpiece or it is nothing; it is either a nocturne
or a nightmare of childish nonsense. Made in a certain mood, viewed
through a certain temperament, conceived under certain conventions, it
may be, it often is, an unreplaceable poem, a vision that may never be
seen again. But the moment it ceases to be a splendid picture it ceases
to be a picture at all. Or, again, if _Hamlet_ is not a great tragedy it
is an uncommonly good tale. The people and the posture of affairs would
still be there even if one thought that Shakespeare's moral attitude was
wrong. Just as one could imagine all the other sides of Rembrandt's
beggar, so, with the mind's eye (Horatio), one can see all four sides of
the castle of Elsinore. One might tell the tale from the point of view
of Laertes or Claudius or Polonius or the gravedigger; and it would
still be a good tale and the same tale. But if we take a play like
_Pelleas and Melisande_, we shall find that unless we grasp the
particular fairy thread of thought the poet rather hazily flings to us,
we cannot grasp anything whatever. Except from one extreme poetic point
of view, the thing is not a play; it is not a bad play, it is a mass of
clotted nonsense. One whole act describes the lovers going to look for a
ring in a distant cave when they both know they have dropped it down a
well. Seen from some secret window on some special side of the soul's
turret, this might convey a sense of faerie futility in our human life.
But it is quite obvious that unless it called forth that one kind of
sympathy, it would call forth nothing but