under the stress of instinct. No man's instinct can draw him towards
material which repels him--the fact is obvious. Obviously, whatever kind
of life the novelist writes about, he has been charmed and seduced by
it, he is under its spell--that is, he has seen beauty in it. He could
have no other reason for writing about it. He may see a strange sort of
beauty; he may--indeed he does--see a sort of beauty that nobody has
quite seen before; he may see a sort of beauty that none save a few odd
spirits ever will or can be made to see. But he does see beauty. To
say, after reading a novel which has held you, that the author has no
sense of beauty, is inept. (The mere fact that you turned over his pages
with interest is an answer to the criticism--a criticism, indeed, which
is not more sagacious than that of the reviewer who remarks: "Mr Blank
has produced a thrilling novel, but unfortunately he cannot write." Mr
Blank has written; and he could, anyhow, write enough to thrill the
reviewer.) All that a wise person will assert is that an artist's sense
of beauty is different for the time being from his own.

The reproach of the lack of a sense of beauty has been brought against
nearly all original novelists; it is seldom brought against a mediocre
novelist. Even in the extreme cases it is untrue; perhaps it is most
untrue in the extreme cases. I do not mean such a case as that of Zola,
who never went to extremes. I mean, for example, Gissing, a real
extremist, who, it is now admitted, saw a clear and undiscovered beauty
in forms of existence which hitherto no artist had deigned seriously to
examine. And I mean Huysmans, a case even more extreme. Possibly no
works have been more abused for ugliness than Huysman's novel _En
Ménage_ and his book of descriptive essays _De Tout_. Both reproduce
with exasperation what is generally regarded as the sordid ugliness of
commonplace daily life. Yet both exercise a unique charm (and will
surely be read when _La Cathédrale_ is forgotten). And it is