-how he grovelled in happiness over a Turner--that
was no Turner at all, as Mr. Ruskin wrote to show--Ruskin! whom he has
since defended. Ah! Messieurs, what our neighbours call "la malice des
choses" was unthought of, and the sarcasm of fate was against you. How
Gerard Dow's broom was an example for the young; and Canaletti and
Paul Veronese are to be swept aside--doubtless with it. How Rembrandt
is coarse, and Carlo Dolci noble--with more of this kind. But what
does it matter?

[Note 18: June 6, 1874]

"What does anything matter!" The farce will go on, and its solemnity
adds to the fun.

Mediocrity flattered at acknowledging mediocrity, and mistaking
mystification for mastery, enters the fog of dilettantism, and,
graduating connoisseur, ends its days in a bewilderment of bric-a-brac
and Brummagem!

"Taste" has long been confounded with capacity, and accepted as
sufficient qualification for the utterance of judgment in music,
poetry, and painting. Art is joyously received as a matter of opinion;
and that it should be based upon laws as rigid and defined as those of
the known sciences, is a supposition no longer to be tolerated by
modern cultivation. For whereas no polished member of society is at
all affected at admitting himself neither engineer, mathematician, nor
astronomer, and therefore remains willingly discreet and taciturn upon
these subjects, still would he be highly offended were he supposed to
have no voice in what is clearly to him a matter of "Taste"; and so he
becomes of necessity the backer of the critic--the cause and result of
his own ignorance and vanity! The fascination of this pose is too much
for him, and he hails with delight its justification. Modesty and good
sense are revolted at nothing, and the millennium of "Taste" sets in.

The whole scheme is simple: the galleries are to be thrown open on
Sundays, and the public, dragged from their beer to the British
Museum, are to delight in the Elgin Marbles, and appreciate what
the early Italians have done to elevate their thirsty souls! An inroad
into the laboratory would be looked upon as an intrusion; but before
the triumphs of Art, the expounder is at his ease, and points out the
doctrine that Raphael's results are within the reach of any beholder,
provided he enrol himself with Ruskin or hearken to Colvin in the
provinces. The people are to be educated upon the broad basis of
"Taste," forsooth, and it matters but little what "g