CHAPTER XV.

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.

IRST, then, of pleasure. It is the CHAPTER

XV.

Is it right to pursue pleasure?

pursuit of pleasure as pleasure, that here claims our attention. Can that pursuit, even in the case of pure and elevating joy, be morally right? This is the leading question of ethics, and must be unflinchingly met. But before we can enter upon so hard a discussion, we are entangled in the mazes of an easier one. Before we can see to the moral bearings of pleasure as such, we encounter the opinion of many worthy people that the kind of pleasure which art has a tendency to foster is on the very gross; that, for all its fair seeming, art is a the pleasure forbidden fruit; that it is by no means the illu- art. minated initial and the golden border of lives saintly in every page; that the lives of artists are anything but divine. All the wrong-doing

grossness of

fostered by

XV.

CHAPTER of poets and artists is gathered together-all the evil that may appear in their own lives, all the sin which they have emblazoned with pen or pencil, or rendered enticing with the charm of sirens; and the vast assemblage of iniquity is fathered upon art as its only lawful offspring. What is good or dignified in art or artists is, by the same sort of people, set aside as nothing akin to art, as belonging to the prose of human life, as a redeeming grace which cleaves to the artist, not because he is an artist, but because he is a man.

The frequent lewd

denied.

Classical

The foulness of many an artist's life and ness of art many a work of art is undeniable. Great part is not to be of the famous Alexandrian library, which was turned into fuel for the public baths, was unworthy, even thus remotely, of being applied to a cleanly purpose, and any one, bathing in waters warmed with its scrolls, had reason to deem himself unclean for the remainder of his days. The mysteries of classical faith entered into a frightful alliance with the fury of the senses. Every important collection of antique gems contains proof of it. Behold corruption in gems: lo, sin immortalized in jewels. Chrysolite and jacinth and jasper-ruby, opal, and sard, that on the breast of the high priest or on the walls of heaven, told the purity of the joy and the brightness of glory which are the heritage of the saints, were darkened and defiled. Cupids wan

art especally at fault.

XV.

toned in the beautiful transparency of rock CHAPTER crystal; satyrs and goats rioted in the cold green of emeralds; the splendour of the beryl was dimmed by the breath of coarse passion; the azure calm of sapphires was overcast with a storm of lust. Why does not the curse of the inwrought image reduce the amethyst to its elements, bring back the topaz to clay and the diamond to ashes? The gem alters only in its sparkling. Adultery tarries in tourmaline; rape and seduction infest the onyx; strange dances wilder in cornelian; and the orgies of Bacchus still fling in perdurable jade. All that is most vile in man is joined to all that is most precious in the inanimate creation. All that is most hideous in nature is married to all that is most lovely in art.

art little behindhand in its in

Nor are such descents as these characteristic Christian only of the heathen. The grossness of Christian r art is little behind the worst displays of pagan- decency. ism. We read in the Coventry Mysteries and the Chester Mysteries, that when the scenes of the garden of Eden were enacted before the multitude, Adam and Eve literally stood naked on the platform, and were not ashamed till they had eaten of the apple; and then having gone to the apple tree for food they went to the figtree for raiment. If the enactment of such a spectacle in the streets of a Christian city appears to be incredible and impossible, still let

XV.

from the

the Restora

As

And again

Vanbrugh.

CHAPTER it be remembered that the demoralization which it implied and engendered is as nothing to the demoralization implied and produced by scenes in still more modern plays, the performance of which we regard as very possible and quite creExamples dible. Take any comic dramatist of the reign comedy of of Charles II. Wycherley wrote a play, called tion, Love in a Wood, which is avowedly to the Wycherley. glory of prostitution and the basest intrigue. Sir John Vanbrugh is generally deemed a Sir John shade or two better than Wycherley; but nothing can be more outrageous than some of the scenes which he ventured to provide for the amusement of playgoers. The obscenity of such writers appears to us credible and possible, as enacted in an English theatre, although it is far more degrading and demoralizing than the story of Adam and Eve as performed by the drapers at Chester, which to us now seems a performance scarcely to be credited, even if we take into account that the female characters were in those days played by men.

The sin inexcusable.

There is no doubt of it. Poetry and art have not always been content with angels' food. More especially in their moments of comic outburst they have drunk of the cup of devils, and they have eaten the mess of satyrs. And by its very nature the sin thus perpetrated is inexcusable because it is shameless and tasteless, and therefore opposed, not only to high moral