st. Melancholy can in this way be the food of art;
and it is no paradox that such a material may be beautiful when a fit
form is imposed upon it, since a fit form turns anything into an
agreeable object; its beauty runs as deep as its fitness, and stops
where its adaptation to human nature begins to fail. Whatever can
interest may prompt to expression, as it may have satisfied curiosity;
and the mind celebrates a little triumph whenever it can formulate a
truth, however unwelcome to the flesh, or discover an actual force,
however unfavourable to given interests. As meditation on death and on
life make equally for wisdom, so the expression of sorrow and joy make
equally for beauty. Meditation and expression are themselves congenial
activities with an intrinsic value which is not lessened if what they
deal with could have been abolished to advantage. If once it exists, we
may understand and interpret it; and this reaction will serve a double
purpose. At first, in its very act, it will suffuse and mollify the
unwelcome experience by another, digesting it, which is welcome; and
later, by the broader adjustment which it will bring into the mind, it
will help us to elude or confront the evils thus laid clearly before us.

Catharsis has no such effect as a sophistical optimism wishes to
attribute to it; it does not show us that evil is good, or that calamity
and crime are things to be grateful for: so forced an apology for evil
has nothing to do with tragedy or wisdom; it belongs to apologetics and
an artificial theodicy. Catharsis is rather the consciousness of how
evil evils are, and how besetting; and how possible goods lie between
and involve serious renunciations. To understand, to accept, and to use
the situation in which a mortal may find himself is the function of art
and reason. Such mastery is desirable in itself and for its fruits; it
does not make itself responsible for the chaos of goods and evils that
it supervenes upon. Whatever writhes in matter, art strives to give form
to; and however unfavourable the field may be for its activity, it does
what it can there, since no other field exists in which it may labour.

[Sidenote: Refinement is true strength.]

Sad music pleases the melancholy because it is sad and other men because
it is music. When a composer attempts to reproduce complex conflicts in
his score he will please complex or disordered spirits for expressing
their troubles, but other men only for the ord