All this
is, in a sense, true, but it is the fault of nothing in heaven or earth
except the attitude and the phrases quoted at the beginning of this
article. We have no doubt in the world that, if the other forms of art
had been equally despised, they would have been equally despicable. If
people had spoken of 'sonnets' with the same accent with which they
speak of 'music-hall songs,' a sonnet would have been a thing so
fearful and wonderful that we almost regret we cannot have a specimen; a
rowdy sonnet is a thing to dream about. If people had said that epics
were only fit for children and nursemaids, 'Paradise Lost' might have
been an average pantomime: it might have been called 'Harlequin Satan,
or How Adam 'Ad 'em.' For who would trouble to bring to perfection a
work in which even perfection is grotesque? Why should Shakespeare write
'Othello' if even his triumph consisted in the eulogy, 'Mr. Shakespeare
is fit for something better than writing tragedies'?
The case of farce, and its wilder embodiment in harlequinade, is
especially important. That these high and legitimate forms of art,
glorified by Aristophanes and Moliere, have sunk into such contempt may
be due to many causes: I myself have little doubt that it is due to the
astonishing and ludicrous lack of belief in hope and hilarity which
marks modern aesthetics, to such an extent that it has spread even to
the revolutionists (once the hopeful section of men), so that even those
who ask us to fling the stars into the sea are not quite sure that they
will be any better there than they were before.
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