contemptible contempt, the bones of my skull beneath it are laughing for
ever.


* * * * *

A DEFENCE OF PUBLICITY


It is a very significant fact that the form of art in which the modern
world has certainly not improved upon the ancient is what may roughly be
called the art of the open air. Public monuments have certainly not
improved, nor has the criticism of them improved, as is evident from the
fashion of condemning such a large number of them as pompous. An
interesting essay might be written on the enormous number of words that
are used as insults when they are really compliments. It is in itself a
singular study in that tendency which, as I have said, is always making
things out worse than they are, and necessitating a systematic attitude
of defence. Thus, for example, some dramatic critics cast contempt upon
a dramatic performance by calling it theatrical, which simply means that
it is suitable to a theatre, and is as much a compliment as calling a
poem poetical. Similarly we speak disdainfully of a certain kind of work
as sentimental, which simply means possessing the admirable and
essential quality of sentiment. Such phrases are all parts of one
peddling and cowardly philosophy, and remind us of the days when
'enthusiast' was a term of reproach. But of all this vocabulary of
unconscious eulogies nothing is more striking than the word 'pompous.'

Properly speaking, of course, a public monument ought to be pompous.
Pomp is its very object; it would be absurd to have columns and pyramids