has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what
Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past
is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real
perfection depends. A temperament capable of receiving, through an
imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and
beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate
a work of art. And true as this is in the case of the appreciation
of sculpture and painting, it is still more true of the
appreciation of such arts as the drama. For a picture and a statue
are not at war with Time. They take no count of its succession.
In one moment their unity may be apprehended. In the case of
literature it is different. Time must be traversed before the
unity of effect is realised. And so, in the drama, there may occur
in the first act of the play something whose real artistic value
may not be evident to the spectator till the third or fourth act is
reached. Is the silly fellow to get angry and call out, and
disturb the play, and annoy the artists? No. The honest man is to
sit quietly, and know the delightful emotions of wonder, curiosity,
and suspense. He is not to go to the play to lose a vulgar temper.
He is to go to the play to realise an artistic temperament. He is
to go to the play to gain an artistic temperament. He is not the
arbiter of the work of art. He is one who is admitted to
contemplate the work of art, and, if the work be fine, to forget in
its contemplation and the egotism that mars him--the egotism of his
ignorance, or the egotism of his information. This point about the
drama is hardly, I think, sufficiently recognised. I can quite
understand that were 'Macbeth' produced for the first time before a
modern London audience, many of the people present would strongly
and vigorously object to the introduction of the witches in the
first act, with their grotesque phrases and their ridiculous words.