stice and fidelity.

Interest, then, is certainly compatible with beauty. That was our
third question. Nevertheless, a comparatively small admixture of the
element of interest may well be found to be most advantageous as far
as beauty is concerned; for beauty is and remains the end of art.
Beauty is in twofold opposition with interest; firstly, because it
lies in the perception of the idea, and such perception takes its
object entirely out of the range of the forms enunciated by the
principle of sufficient reason; whereas interest has its sphere mainly
in circumstance, and it is out of this principle that the complexity
of circumstance arises. Secondly, interest works by exciting the will;
whereas beauty exists only for the pure perceptive intelligence, which
has no will. However, with dramatic and descriptive literature an
admixture of interest is necessary, just as a volatile and gaseous
substance requires a material basis if it is to be preserved and
transferred. The admixture is necessary, partly, indeed, because
interest is itself created by the events which have to be devised in
order to set the characters in motion; partly because our minds would
be weary of watching scene after scene if they had no concern for us,
or of passing from one significant picture to another if we were not
drawn on by some secret thread. It is this that we call interest;
it is the sympathy which the event in itself forces us to feel, and
which, by riveting our attention, makes the mind obedient to the poet,
and able to follow him into all the parts of his story.

If the interest of a work of art is sufficient to achieve this result,
it does all that can be required of it; for its only service is to
connect the pictures by which the poet desires to communicate a
knowledge of the idea, as if they were pearls, and interest were the
thread that holds them together, and makes an ornament out of the
whole. But interest is prejudicial to beauty as soon as it oversteps
this limit; and this is the case if we are so led away by the interest
of a work that whenever we come to any detailed description in a
novel, or any lengthy reflection on the part of a character in a
drama, we grow impatient and want to put spurs to our author, so that
we may follow the development of events with greater speed. Epic and
dramatic writings, where beauty and interest are both present in a
high degree, may be compared to the working of a watch, where interest
is t