re light," used "sweetness and light" as
a refrain in all his criticism. Walter Pater, to whom the beauty of
the human form, and therefore of sculpture, was especially appealing,
loved to use such terms as "shapely," "comely," "blythe," "gracious,"
"engaging," to express the fine flavour[2] of a work of art. The
quality may be manifested primarily through the intellect, as with
Meredith; through the senses, as with Swinburne; through the
perceptions, as with Turgeniev, Flaubert and Joseph Conrad; or through
intellect and perceptions acutely balanced, as with Mr. Henry James
(who gives us "curiosity" as the keynote); but in any case it is that
which we require an artist to bring with him--"fineness," "light,"
"choiceness," "comeliness," "graciousness"--when he visualises or
focusses his object. Does not that untranslatable +liparos aither+ of
Homer--the shining upper air--suggest not only the physical atmosphere
breathed by the gods of Olympus and the great-hearted Odysseus, but
also the poetic atmosphere of the Odyssey itself?

We have, then, added a third term to our generalisation about art. We
now require, as it seems, that it should provide us with an energetic
experience; that it should be disinterested in the sense that it
cannot aim at any competing, alien end; and thirdly, that this
experience should come from objects made beautiful in the sense of
being shown in a certain light, or made alight--in a manner which
demands further inquiry. And here indeed is the difficulty. For we
must endeavour to examine the question from the artist's standpoint,
and seek counsel from him.

It would be no less futile than presumptuous to lay down exact formulae
as to what the artist ought and ought not to do. No modern critic is
likely to waste his time in framing rules and canons, which can be so
easily handled by the pedant and stand condemned by the first great
man who defies them. Aristotle did it once and for all for the Greek
drama, and when the perspective of life widened and new forms of
literature grew up to compete with drama, his rules were destined
either to shackle literature or to be thrown ruthlessly overboard in
the violent revulsion against Classicism. Shakespeare fortunately was
guiltless of any exact knowledge of Aristotle, and the fact that
Corneille and Racine, who had no French Shakespeare to precede them,
were in bondage to that influential philosopher, had a lasting effect
upon French literature which t