of Quartilla, as Petronius describes
them, at Neapolis. It is like a ray of light coming in at the top of a
dark cavern, whose inmates see not _it_, but _by_ it; and which only
brings to them a consciousness of shadow. It is this supernatural
element that leavens natural passion, and gives its mad rage to it. It
creates for it '_a twilight where virtues are vices_.' The pleasures
thus sought for are supposed to enthral men not in proportion to their
intensity (for this through all their varieties would be probably nearly
equal) but in proportion to their lowness--to their sullying power.
Degradation is the measure of enjoyment; or rather it is an increasing
numeral by which one constant figure of enjoyment is multiplied.

_Ah, where shall we go then, for pastime,
If the_ worst _that can be has been done?_

This is the great question of the votaries of such joys as these.[24]

Thus if we look at life in the mirror of art, we shall see how the
supernatural is ever present to us. If we climb up into heaven it is
there; if we go down into hell it is there also. We shall see it at the
bottom of those two opposite sets of pleasures, to the one or the other
of which all human pleasures belong. The source of one is an impassioned
struggle after the supernatural right, or an impassioned sense of rest
upon attaining it; the source of the other is the sense of revolt
against it, which in various ways flatters or excites us. In both cases
the supernatural moral judgment is the sense appealed to, primarily in
the first case, and secondarily if not primarily in the second. All the
life about us is coloured by this, and naturally if this be destroyed or
wrecked, the whole aspect of life will change for us. What then will
this change be? Looking still into the mirror of art, the general
character of it will be very readily perceptible. I noticed just now,
in passing, how _Measure for Measure_ and _Faust_ would suffer in their
meaning and their interest, by the absence on our part of a certain
moral judgment. They would become like a person singing to a deaf
audience--a series of dumb grimaces with no meaning in them. The same
thing is equally true in all the other cases. Antigone's heroism will
evaporate;[25] she will be left obstinate only. The lives of Macbeth and
Hamlet will be tales of little meaning for us, though the words are
strong. They will be full of sound and fury, but they will signify
nothing. What they produce