indignation and
anger: and yet we have not the slightest desire to jump up on the stage
and stay his arm. The artificial setting of the stage, the lighted
proscenium before the dark house, have removed the whole action from the
world which is connected with our own deeds. The consciousness of
unreality, which the theater has forced on us, is the condition for our
dramatic interest in the events presented. If we were really deceived
and only for a moment took the stage quarrel and stage crime to be real,
we would at once be removed from the height of esthetic joy to the level
of common experience.

We must take one step more. We need not only the complete separation
from reality by the changed forms of experience, but we must demand also
that this unreal thing or event shall be complete in itself. The artist,
therefore, must do whatever is needed to satisfy the demands which any
part awakens. If one line in the painting suggests a certain mood and
movement, the other lines must take it up and the colors must sympathize
with it and they all must agree with the pictured content. The tension
which one scene in the drama awakens must be relieved by another.
Nothing must remain unexplained and nothing unfinished. We do not want
to know what is going on behind the hills of the landscape painting or
what the couple in the comedy will do after the engagement in the last
act. On the other hand, if the artist adds elements which are in harmony
with the demands of the other parts, they are esthetically valuable,
however much they may differ from the actual happenings in the outer
world. In the painting the mermaid may have her tail and the sculptured
child may have his angel wings and fairies may appear on the stage. In
short, every demand which is made by the purpose of true art removes us
from reality and is contrary to the superficial claim that art ought to
rest on skillful imitation. The true victory of art lies in the
overcoming of the real appearance and every art is genuine which
fulfills this esthetic desire for history or for nature, in its own way.

The number of ways cannot be determined beforehand. By the study of
painting and etching and drawing merely, we could not foresee that there
is also possible an art like sculpture, and by studying epic and lyric
poetry we could not construct beforehand the forms of the drama. The
genius of mankind had to discover ever new forms in which the interest
in reality is conserved a