us thing. He would have
discovered that it is the one grave and chaste and decent method of
expressing a certain class of emotions. And similarly, if he had ever
had, as Mr. Shaw and I have had, the impulse to what he calls paradox,
he would have discovered that paradox again is not a frivolous thing,
but a very serious thing. He would have found that paradox simply means
a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief. I should regard any
civilization which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancing
as being, from the full human point of view, a defective civilization.
And I should regard any mind which had not got the habit in one form or
another of uproarious thinking as being, from the full human point of
view, a defective mind. It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet
is a part of him. He should be part of a ballet, or else he is only
part of a man. It is in vain for him to say that he is "not quarrelling
with the importation of humour into the controversy." He ought himself
to be importing humour into every controversy; for unless a man is in
part a humorist, he is only in part a man. To sum up the whole matter
very simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I import frivolity into a
discussion of the nature of man, I answer, because frivolity is a part
of the nature of man. If he asks me why I introduce what he calls
paradoxes into a philosophical problem, I answer, because all
philosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. If he objects to my
treating of life riotously, I reply that life is a riot. And I say
that the Universe as I see it, at any rate, is very much more like the
fireworks at the Crystal Palace than it is like his own philosophy.
About the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity--like
preparations for Guy Fawkes' day. Eternity is the eve of something. I
never look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of a
schoolboy's rocket, fixed in their everlasting fall.

XVII On the Wit of Whistler

That capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, has included in a
book of essays recently published, I believe, an apologia for "London
Nights," in which he says that morality should be wholly subordinated
to art in criticism, and he uses the somewhat singular argument that
art or the worship of beauty is the same in all ages, while morality
differs in every period and in every respect. He appears to defy his
critics or his readers to mention any permanent featu